New way to save money: Rent textbooks

(FOX Providence) - Going to college is a lifetime investment, but the textbooks students have to buy for their classes are often used for a few weeks and then forgotten.

With students trying to save money in the face of rising college costs, a number of schools are offering textbook rental programs which offer the promise of big savings compared to the cost of buying new books every semester.

Peter Kerwin from the Rhode Island Higher Education Assistance Authority joined The Rhode Show to talk about this change in the billion dollar textbook industry.

Is renting the way to go for students?

There has clearly been a shift in the student textbook market toward renting. Already, there were a handful of companies offering textbook rentals and we’ve started to see many of the large bookstore companies dip their feet into water and offer textbook rental pilot programs. Some of the larger companies in the textbook business—Barnes and Noble, Follett Higher Education Group, and Cengage Learning have all announced expansions of their textbook rental programs.

They’re doing this because they know students are looking for value and they want to make sure that if the market changing, they are positioned to take advantage of it.

The one thing to keep in mind for students is that they really need to look at all their options. I’m a book guy, so I held on to a lot of the books I bought for college classes. I usually turned around and sold the ones I didn’t want back to the bookstore, but you tend not to recoup much of your money that way. Students need to explore the cost of buying used books and compare that to the potential rental costs and make a determination as to what is best for them.

What about the emergence of e-books?

That’s a real wild card in the middle of this discussion. Last month, the big news in technology was the launch of the new iTab…the Apple Tablet and many people think that technology is going to have a big impact on college campuses.

Let’s keep in mind that the electronic textbooks model has been around for a few years, but hasn’t really caught on with students. It’s really all about the platform though, and the iTab is larger than any of the screens for the electronic book platforms, such as the Kindle or Sony Reader. You now have the ability to offer e-textbooks through the iTunes Store and create a new way of supplying students with the course materials they need.

The bottom line is still going to be price. How well the iTab or any electronic textbook application penetrates the college marketplace is going to be determined by how much it costs and what features it provides students.

On the web:
www.bookrenter.com
www.cengage.com
www.follett.com