The National Association of College Stores expects that half of its 3,000 member stores will rent textbooks this fall, according to a Chronicle of Higher Education story. Last year, as many as 300 stores offered rentals.
What a difference a year can make.
Furthermore, 72 percent of students who rented textbooks said they would do it again, according to an email survey of 540 students that the association conducted in April. But only 12 percent of the students in the survey said they had rented textbooks, so this is a tiny sampling.
St. Cloud State University is going to experiment with the textbook rentals this summer. I asked MinnPost.com readers in late May what they thought about the concept.
“My school, UW-River Falls, rented textbooks,” wrote commenter Joey White. “It was the greatest thing and I don’t know why more schools don’t do it!”
Dale Carlton wrote that the University of Minnesota also has been “renting textbooks for some time in many, but not all classes.”
A couple of other “who-knew?” facets in the Chronicle story:
• “The idea of renting textbooks is nothing new. Some colleges have offered the service since the mid-19th century.”
• Stores have been reluctant to offer rentals because of high start-up costs and some faculty resistance. Programs require professors to use the same editions for at least four to six semesters.
Love this quote from an association spokesman about more stores finding a way around the barriers: “For a lot of kids, it’s the first time they’re swiping a credit card or writing a check for something three digits. … This is another way for us to say we care and this is a way for you not to sell your soul for textbooks.”
I can think of a few students in my day who sold pints of their blood to help pay for college and textbooks.
In a case of strange juxtaposition, the No. 1 most-popular story in the Chronicle has this headline: “New rule to curb textbook costs irks some professors.” The rule, contained in the 2008 re-authorization of the Higher Education Act, takes effect July 1. The textbook rental story isn’t on the most-popular list last time I checked.
There is absolutely no reason that textbooks cannot be rented, save for the bottom line of faculty who write textbooks. When I was an undergrad (1996-2000), there were countless times I went to sell a used book and was given the refrain: “there’s a new edition being released, so they won’t use your book anymore.” What, precisely, changes in a calculus or physics textbook?
Now, some faculty write textbooks. And they don’t make as much money when those books are rented. Tough luck. College students don’t have an unlimited amount of money to burn on expensive books and need to save where they can. Rentals are a good start.
I’m torn on this. On the one hand, I completely sympathize. I haven’t opened some of my books since the class ended two years ago for grad school or 7+ years ago for undergrad.
On the other hand, the books that I refer back to are all the expensive ones. Statistics, finance and accounting were my most expensive classes in terms of books. And they’re the only ones I’ve wanted since I graduated. A lot of my coworkers keep their textbooks at work (titles like Structural Engineering and Metal Fatigue) and refer to them often. The office library has books with the same information but it’s nice to have whatever edition you’re used to.
I think textbook renting is definitely the best way to go. #1 it’s green. #2 IT SAVES MONEY!
It is not much of a hassle when the company will directly send you the book and give you the shipping packaging to return it. …Definitely worth it in my opinion.
Sometimes it is a better deal to actually go ahead and just buy used, but I have found that overall renting will save the most money in the long run.
I have used http://www.rentscouter.com for a year and have already saved hundreds. It gives me automatic price comparisons of the best renting, buying, selling websites.
-chegg
-book renter
-ecampus
-etc.
The past 2 years I have rented my textbooks from eCampus.com – Rent Textbooks and I absolutely love them. Textbooks are insanely expensive to buy/sell and I have been in that position where the bookstore will not buy the book back because it is an “old version”. With renting you don’t need to take that risk. eCampus has been amazing with getting my books to me on time, and they always have the cheapest prices for my textbooks!