Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Renting College Textbooks - Three Big Advantages

Going to college can be expensive and often students have no options when it comes to saving money. However, one way a student can save money is with college textbook costs. If you want to save money on textbook costs, the best way to do it is to rent the textbooks, rather than buy them. Textbook rental companies will rent college textbooks for a price that will save the student more than 50% over purchasing costs.

There are three big advantages to renting college textbooks. The first big advantage to renting textbooks is the cyber advantage. Textbook rental is done completely online. The student can access a rental company's online catalog from the convenience of their dorm room, apartment or library. If you have a computer, you can rent textbooks. The student doesn't have to fight lines in the bookstore at the beginning of the semester waiting in line to pay for his or her books. Online rental saves money and time.

Another advantage to renting textbooks is comparison shopping. Online rental companies boast that their catalogs have everything. However, the only company that has everything is the Library of Congress! The student may find prices vary widely from company to company. Plus, some rental companies may favor certain subjects such as science or history over health or education. Since comparison shopping is easy to do online, you may as well take advantage of it, especially if it saves you money.

If you take courses that tend to not be in the mainstream, such as music, library science, or theology, to name a few, you may want to find those books in the catalog first to see which company offers them for rent. Most online rental companies have large catalogs and you should be able to find what you need. But certain courses may not be as well stocked as others.

In some areas, college freshman are required to take remedial writing or math courses their first semester. Buying such textbooks to accompany these classes would not be advisable since their worth greatly diminishes when the course is over.

Lastly, the advantage of offering free shipping when returning the textbooks at the end of the semester is a huge incentive. Have you ever gone through an unbearable course only to say on the last day "I never want to think about that class again." Just think how nice it would be to put the textbook in a bag and ship it back for free. No more packing up heavy textbooks to bring home for the summer. Why bring them home when you have no intention of looking at the?. Usually students simply bring the textbooks back to college in the fall with the hope of selling them at a used book sale for a fraction of what they paid for them.

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