Rent your textbook
Posted by: Sue Polanka
Recently, many bookstores and online publishing outlets are offering students the option to rent their textbooks. This trend stems from a federal grant established to encourage bookstores to offer textbook rental in order to offset the high cost of textbooks. Rentals usually run about 40-60% cheaper than the purchase price. Barnes and Noble piloted the program last year and with success, has expanded the program to 25 campuses this year. Students must login to the campus bookstore site to rent titles. Cengage Learning launched a textbook rental program in December of 2009, at CengageBrain.com. Their program offers students the first chapter of the book in electronic format immediately, with a variety of shipping options for the print. Students also have the option to purchase chapters of textbooks in electronic format. Other online sites have offered textbook rentals prior to the last few months. Chegg.com is one of these sites. This online company plants a tree for every book rented and offers gift certificates. Other companies include Skoobit, Bookswim, and Bookrenter.
