- Image by Leo Reynolds via Flickr
Back in the day when I was in college one of the things I hated doing was shelling out a hundred bucks for a text book. The main reason I hated doing that was I knew that at the end of the year when I sold it (after all who needs a World History textbook on the coffee table) I would be able to maybe sell it back for 20 bucks. Obviously some other people have felt that same pain because now some students will be able to rent their text books.
You can cut your upfront costs by about half by renting it. So if I could rent that book for 50 bucks, I would still save money in the long run (since it would have cost me 80 bucks even after I sold it back).
Barnes and Noble is expanding its pilot program of renting text books.
One other big change is the ability to get your text books digitally (especially since you now have the Ipad which let’s you have nice color pictures).
If you’re interested in renting textbooks and they aren’t available at your college bookstore then you may want to check out Book renter. http://www.bookrenter.com/ They have a partnership with Amazon and offer free shipping when you rent the textbook as well as when you return the textbook.
One thing I did in college to save a bit of money was to sell the book to a student that would be taking the class the next semester. I would check out the price of a used book and then sell it about 10 bucks below that… I do think though if I were going to school now I would definitely rent the book unless I thought I would need it for reference later.
Enjoy your day.
