Sunday, August 22, 2010

To rent or buy

This post is about renting or buying college textbooks, not houses. There was an article in Sunday’s Forum about renting textbooks instead of purchasing them. One of the largest expenses for college students is textbooks and in some cases they don’t use them a lot for some classes. With the price of books getting so high some are turning to renting.
If you search online for renting textbooks, a number of sites come up. One the sites I have heard of before is Chegg. Now locally NDSU and MSU have launched textbook rental programs. Students can rent certain title for the semester at roughly half the price they would pay for a new book. At the end of the semester, students bring the rental book back, or they are charged for it.
NDSU has 30 titles available this year and plans to offer more in the future. If all 1,595 books are rented this fall, students will save about $90,000.
One example in the article was a freshman English book at NDSU costs $36 to rent, $48.60 to purchase used and $86.50 to purchase new.
So if you are attending college or know someone who is, renting textbooks may be something to look into to save some money.

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