Students tired of buying and selling back their books on a semesterly basis can now rent books — to be returned at the end of a course, or kept if they love the title, through a website service.
Chegg.com, launched in 2007, allows students to rent books for a set fee per book and return them to the site at the end of the semester. Chegg Marketing Vice president Maria Reiling said high textbook costs had frustrated the site’s creators, who were looking for a more efficient way to turnover books.
College textbook prices have risen at twice the rate of inflation since 1986 – with the average student spending $700 to $1,000 dollars a year, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office.
“Rentals are a really attractive option for savings and convenience,” Reiling said.
She said the company has grown rapidly through momentum created by word of mouth, has saved students millions of dollars and is on more than 1,000 campuses.
“It has surpassed our expectations and we give a lot of the credit to our current user base, who came back and told their friends,” Reiling said.
Chegg has partnered with EcoLibris and Plant-A-Tree USA so for every book rented, a tree will be planted, she said.
“We are trying to offer as much saving and convenience to customers while being environmentally friendly,” Reiling said.
Boston College textbook buyer Carol Bisceglia said negative past experiences when buying books online will keep book-renting from becoming students’ preferred method.
“The feedback I get from a lot of students is that they’re getting wrong editions or not getting them on time,” Bisceglia said. “They’re not going to take the chance.”
Bisceglia said the bookstore discussed the new renting development after she heard several college bookstores had started similar programs.
“We weren’t too keen about it,” she said. “We just weren’t sure how it would pan out here. It really wasn’t of any interest to us and our system already works well.”
Boston University College of Communication junior Abrah Shapiro said she would not use the book rental website unless a friend recommended it to her.
“I’d be a little nervous without having seen anyone go through it before because you don’t know what the conditions of the textbook will be like when you get it,” she said.
Shapiro said if renting became more popular on campus, she would look into using it for classes that were not in her major.
“I would want to send the books back,” Shapiro said. “Anything to save money on my textbooks.”
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