Renting Can Lower Textbook Costs

Today's Wall Street Journal had an interesting article by Peter King, entitled "A Textbook Case of Renting Books". I'd heard of similar schemes before, but most were offered by some of the major textbook publishers. This article compares four independent sites where university students can rent textbooks for the amount of time they need them and return them to the company when they're finished. The savings can be high. For example, the third edition of an advanced accounting text, "Fraud Accounting", costs $177.95 new, but can be rented for as little as $52.54 for 55 days, or $41.12 for 90 days from one the sites which employs a guaranteed buy-back model.

The four sites analyzed in the article are:
http://bookrenter.com
http://campusbookrentals.com
http://chegg.com, and
http://textbooks.com

The last one is the site employing a guaranteed buy-back model.

Progress, but still, free is better.

-Don