Textbooks are a pretty big chunk of your college expenses. If you choose to buy them, you are looking to spend around $900 per year for all of your textbooks. There is another option though. You can rent your textbooks online and drastically reduce the amount of money that you spend on your textbooks. Sometimes saving up to 85% on your textbooks.
Check out the savings for yourself! Here are a few sites that offer textbook rentals.
Chegg.com
Chegg is the #1 Textbook rental service and has saved students a total of $71,596,544.54 and this number continues to grow every second! It is very easy to use and they have thousands of textbooks. They also have very quick shipping so you can get that book at the last minute. With Chegg, you can Save $500 a Year on Textbooks. There are not enough great things I can say about this service. Use Chegg.com to Rent Textbooks!
Here are some alternative textbook rental sites that you can check out. I haven’t personally used any of the below services before, but I’m sure they are great. If any of you have used them though please review them in the comment section. Thanks!
BookRenter.com
“College bookstores are expensive and finding reliable used textbooks can be a hassle. Why bother when you can rent your books online for a fraction of the cost? As the best way to rent textbooks, BookRenter.com is here to make education more affordable. Register Now and see what renting books can do for you.” Save hundreds on your college textbooks with BookRenter.com!
CampusBookRentals.com
“Renting textbooks makes sense plain and simple. Every rental comes with a worry free guarantee within the first 15 days if you drop your class or change your mind, you keep more cash in your pocket up front, you can order from the comfort of your home or office, it doesn’t cost a penny to return your rented textbooks when you’re done with them (we even provide the package), and you don’t have to worry about disappointing buyback prices at the end of the semester. Let us take the risk that your textbook will be worthless next semester; you don’t have to anymore.” Check out Campusbookrentals.com!
KnetBooks.com
“Knetbooks is a division of Knetwit.com. Our goal is to give back to the students and to make education affordable for all. Knetbooks is a textbook rental site that helps students save money on textbooks that they would normally have to buy anyway. We also want to help educate people less fortunate and will donate books and scholarships to schools, organizations, and people in need.”
Skoobit.com
“Skoobit is an online textbook rental company which delivers the very best in customer service making textbook rental very easy. Our rental service saves students up to 85% off by just renting, which also saves the environment, whereby students are reusing books.”
Conclusion
There you have it, five awesome services to help cut the cost of college. Happy renting!
How much have you saved this year?
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Marita
Renting textbooks is super convenient! The trend of TranSumerism is great. For those who are avid readers in their spare time, I reccomend BookSwim.
Dan Northern
I just took a look at Bookswim.com. It looks like a great way to rent books. It is always nice to get away from all of your school reading and sit down with something you enjoy. Thanks for the heads up Marita.
Andrew
Here is another textbook rental site you can add to the list. Its http://www.skoobit.com. Have used them already and they are great! I saved over $300 on my textbooks.
Dan Northern
Thanks for the resource Andrew. I added it to the list.
Britney
Great Review. I have tried some of the others but going with Bookrenter. They have been great. Plus they give a portion to Haiti Relief which is really cool
Dan Northern
Thanks Britney. Bookrenter looks like they provide quality service. I just saw on their website that they are donating to Haiti, and i agree, that is really cool of them to do!
Matthew Taylor
I just ran across your blog and wanted to make sure that you knew that eCampus.com also rents Textbooks. You can find search through our available rental books here: Rent Textbooks from eCampus.com
Thanks!
Jess
This model has recently been brought to the UK with UnibookRental.com! I have only used them once but the book arrived in 2 days and was brand new- I saved 60 odd percent on the purchase price. Great idea and glad to see it here in the UK at last!
Steven@Student Loan
renting textbooks is one good idea in saving for school expenses. thank you for sharing this site to everyone and have everybody benefit from that.
Alice
Acadreamia.co.uk is the best place to rent in the UK, they brought this idea over a while ago and I used them to rent textbooks in my first and second semester this year! Customer service was dead helpful as well.
office space Jackson
Renting textbooks is a great idea. They are so expensive brand new…and really cannot be sold but for a fraction of their original cost. And to make matters worse..the version changes almost every year forcing you to buy new.
Jenn
I disagree. Isn't it cheaper to buy used books online and then sell it back? The cost to rent books is not any cheaper than buying used books. If you buy used books, you can sell it back for a slightly lower price.
Renting books= You pay for renting cost
Buying used books & Selling it back = You pay for used books (almost same price as renting books) and you a good portion of your money back (usually at least 90%).
Dan N
You bring up a good point Jenny. I have been experimenting with renting as well as buying used and reselling. I have found that either method is fine and what it ultimately comes down to is the book. Some books have a higher resell value than others. So, the bet advice I can give is to compare the rental price to the used book price, and estimate what kind of profits you can make back.
Olivia Unise
At some point, renting books is more practical especially if you are not fond of collecting books, and you don't have that much money to invest for buying whether old books or new ones. If you intend to use a book once in your life only, like if you are just taking a short program in an online university, then renting is better in my opinion.
Olive Sommers
Renting textbooks is also a best option for students who are taking education through online schools, aside from just borrowing books from public library or buying which is really costly.
Edmund Yeo
Hi Dan,
I am sure a lot of students will be pleased with these services because it will help them to save some pocket money as well. Some of the modules that we study in school only make use of a few chapters of the textbook therefore there is really no point for students to get the whole text.
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Charlie@Online Colle
Renting textbooks is one way of saving or cutting costs for education. Everyone, especially those who are going into online college, could benefit from this book rentals.
Edmund Yeo
Renting textbooks is certainly one of the best ways for students who have limited pocket money. Buying a textbook is only necessary provided most of the chapters are being taught during the course of study. Personally, I have bought certain textbooks and found them to be a waste of money because only a few topics were being covered during the course.
Mafwila
Can you please tell me more about this via my email i do really like to start something like this in my area.so how do you trace your books for people who don't return back and how much do you charge and for how long
R. Cristi
I just finished a seminar on saving money during college. They actually recommended Chegg. Great website. Keep up the great work.
edward
i think there’s a case to be made for buying or renting. With certain textbooks, renting can be cheaper. However, any savings will be gone if you return your books late because of the late fee penalties. another alternative is to use a textbook price comparison engine to see prices for both used textbooks as well as textbook rentals to determine which is cheaper.
edward from cheap college textbooks
Taylor Timms
Buying books every year is my biggest headache because of my budget, but since you post this I have an idea to rent a books.Thank you Chegg you do a great job..
Taylor Timms
Author of Bikini Picture book!
Versie Facundo
Just browsing and located your site – thanks for sharing.
Rachel Whitefield
Indeed it’s very practical and convenient to rent textbooks for a lesser price. Most university students would definitely prefer this. I’m not aware of this kind of service when I was studying, one disadvantage could be libraries becoming more extinct. ;D
cheers!
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Dean Waller
You can also rent textbooks from Big Words.com, although they are better known for selling textbooks on the cheap.
Kathy Ink
Bigwords is also another great idea to get low priced and rental text books. Or better yet, get online versions so that way you won’t need to carry so many books with you plus you’d probably get the latest edition with online ones.
Olivia Unise@Online Universities
Wow I did not know you can rent text books. That is a very good way to save money. I know some book stores buy your old text books but they do not pay nearly as much as you paid for them.
James
With ereaders such as the kindle and ipad I think online is the way to go for text books. Easier to carry and you can quickly search for what you need. When I was at college I spent an awful lot of money on text books, so yes renting is a good idea. If you could rent electronic versions that would be perfect!
michael
a great addition to your list would be
http://www.SaveonTextbooks.net
a new service that will pay you back in cash a percentage of what you spend on textbooks. this is different from any other similar textbook website.
Jade
Because it’s the practical choice. Try it and you’ll be surprised on how much you can save on textbooks.
john
Renting a text book is a good idea, especially in the current economic climate. Text books can be expensive to buy but only useful when doing a course. Renting a textbook is not only cost effective but environmentally friendly as the books get recycled in a sense, is this available in the UK.
krisroj
Renting college textbooks is the best option for students those who learn education through online, this is really effective information about Rent College Textbooks..thank you for sharing such a nice post
csfrnz
Nice thought krisroj.
Renting college textbooks is the best option for students those who learn education through online, this is really effective information about Rent College Textbooks..thank you for sharing such a nice post