Gainesville, FL (PRWEB) February 07, 2012
Students looking to save money don’t mind returning rented textbooks at the end of a semester if it means $50 more in their pockets.
“We’ve noticed a growing number of consumers searching on our site for rental textbooks,” said Steven Kennedy, founder of Textbooks.org.
The site compares prices of books sold at more than 40 online merchants, such as Amazon, Half.com and BarnesandNoble.com, but it also scours the internet for the best book rental offers. Textbooks.org then compares those numbers and presents a “Summary of Lowest Prices” for both the price of a book and price of a rental alternative.
Popular engineering and science books, which may cost $150 dollars when purchased new, can sometimes be rented through Textbooks.org for as little as 10 percent of the new book’s purchase price.
Rental programs can save students more than 60 percent off the price of new textbooks, according to the National Association of College Stores.
“Rentals are the best bang-for-your-buck option for some classes,” Kennedy said. “Even if you bought a book and sold it back to the retailer at the end of the semester, the amount of money returned during buyback season might not balance out to the rental cost.”
The onslaught of e-readers has made downloadable textbooks a convenient tool, but even these resources are not within financial research for many students. In a study described in The Chronicle of Higher Education, researchers found that the average savings was only a $1 for an electronic book as compared to the traditional printed version. The same study also showed that 29 percent of students avoided purchasing textbooks for a course or took fewer credit hours because of the financial hardship caused by the cost of books.
Big book retailers have responded. Follet alone has rented 4.5 million books through its Rent-A-Text program, saving students more than $215 million.
“You will save by choosing to rent,” Kennedy said. “But you can be an even smarter shopper by using our site to compare rental plans.”
About Textbooks.org
Working to be the best resource for students shopping for cheap textbooks, the site has helped thousands save time and money buying college textbooks.
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Source Article from http://www.prweb.com/releases/rental/textbooks/prweb9169461.htm
