Rent Textbooks? The Pros & Cons of Chegg & More

Gone are the days of being limited to buying pricey textbooks from university bookstores. Today there are numerous ways college students can avoid buying expensive textbooks, mainly through online textbook rental services. Websites like Chegg promote renting textbooks so that college students can afford everyday living and simple tasks like washing laundry. Every dollar counts that students can save on textbooks, and why not save a few dollars if all it takes is a little research? Here is a list of pros and cons for five major textbook rental websites along with three popular textbooks with price comparisons across all five sites.

1. Chegg

Chegg is a popular textbook rental site, serving the needs of college students all over the country. Students rent the books off of the website and return them for free via airmail once the term ends. One of the site’s incentives for students to use their services is the tree that is planted for every time a student rents. More Chegg Coupons…

Pros:

• Students can customize the site to popular books used at their universities. A sliding menu on the home page shows the titles, covers and rental prices of popular book. Additionally, a “Pick Courses” tab lays out the university’s courses with the required book lists, course reviews and students are able to write course reviews and plan course schedules.
• The 21 day any reason guarantee policy allows renters who are dissatisfied in any way with the books they’ve received from Chegg to be returned within 21 days for a full refund.
• The site is plentiful with textbooks, and rarely will the site
• If students need the same textbook for an additional period of time, they can buy an extension for 15, 30, 45, 60 days, a quarter (85 days) or a semester (125 days).

Cons:

• There is only one rental length period, as opposed to other sites where students can choose a quarter, semester or summer term which each have varying numbers of days, meaning varying prices. The rental length for Chegg is 180 days, with one rental price for each textbook, but renters can return the books whenever they are finished using them.
• Depending on what book a student is looking to rent it may be cheaper to buy it if it’s a paperback novel, for example. On sites such as Chegg, the rental price can be exponentially more than the price to purchase the book.

Norton Anthology of American Literature 7^th Edition: $36.49

Common Sense by Thomas Paine: $11.99

Intermediate Accounting: $59.99

2. Barnes & Noble

Barnes & Noble allows students to rent textbooks according to various subjects and choose how long of a rental period they would like. The site promotes giving students the option of renting, instead of buying, because they know students don’t need (or want) a spare business and finance textbook on their shelves.

Pros:

• Like Chegg, returns on rentals to Barnes and Noble are free, using their UPS shipping labels.
• There is a 30-day return policy if the renter is unsatisfied or decides to drop a class, along with a full refund.
• Three options for rental periods: 60, 90 and 130 days. Renters are able to extend their time for 15, 30, 45, 60, 90 or 125 days. There are plenty of options.
• Orders over $25 qualify for free shipping on the way to renters.
• B & N has an easy system for selling back your textbooks for cash.

Cons:

• If textbooks are late or in worse condition than when a renter received them, the renter will be charged extra fees.

Norton Anthology of American Literature 7^th Edition: $25.88 for 90 days

Intermediate Accounting: $48.86 for 90 days

Common Sense by Thomas Paine: Not available for rent; a used copy costs $3.20

3. Amazon Kindle Textbook Rentals

Amazon Kindle Textbook Rentals are a new way to access textbooks on almost any electronic device, and students don’t need a Kindle to rent. The service offers unbeatable prices to students who need them, and are delivered wirelessly for no charge. Students can save up to 80% just by renting a Kindle version of a textbook as opposed to buying it. Sign me up.

Pros:

• Because of the free, automatic, wireless delivery, renters don’t have to deal with the hassle of sending books back in the mail or waiting for books to arrive to their mailboxes.
• Rental length ranges anywhere from 30 to 360 days, so that students are paying for exactly what they need. Nothing more and nothing less. Renters can also extend the rental length or purchase the textbook at any time.
• Renters of kindle textbooks are able to access their notes and highlights online at any time, even after their rentals have expired.
• Kindle textbook rentals are usually cheaper than the print version, and sometimes they’re even free!

Cons:

• Because this is new technology and it’s just starting to catch fire, not as many textbooks have been converted to e-books. Therefore, it is more difficult for students to find books in their electronic formats.
• Without a physical copy of the textbook, students may have a hard time navigating back and forth from pages around the text while studying.

Norton Anthology of American Literature 7^th Edition: Not available on Kindle, but whenever this happens renters can click the, “I’d like to read this on Kindle” button, which will inform the publisher. It may not happen instantaneously, but maybe it will be available for those in the future.

Common Sense by Thomas Paine: $0.00

Intermediate Accounting: $60.84 for 90 days

4.Campus Book Rentals

Campus Book Rentals prides itself on having great customer service, with staff that will respond to emails and send customers their books on time. With “nearly every book available to rent,” their library of books is quite vast.

Pros:

• Free shipping on the way to renters and back to Campus Book Rentals. They provide a prepaid return envelope with each rental.
• The site allows a 30-day risk free return with each rental.
• Renters are allowed to highlight in the textbooks, without damage fees.
• There is a 15-day grace period for returns, in case an exam comes up later than a student expected at the end of a quarter, or any other reason. These beloved 15 extra days are given at no cost.
• There are three rental periods: Summer (55 days), Quarter (85 days), and Semester (130 days). Or renters can choose their own return date.
• If students need to reuse their rented textbooks, they can be re-rented at a price 30% less than the original price, so it’s still cheaper than buying the book (if it’s a pretty hefty and expensive textbook.)
• If the renter decides to buy the textbook from the site, the difference will be subtracted from the book’s price so that he or she is never paying more than the textbook price.
• If renters refer Campus Book Rentals to a friend, they can save more on textbooks.

Cons:

• Renters should use caution when looking to rent a novel or cheap textbook, because renting it on a site like this could end up costing more than buying the book in used condition.
• There are limited shipping options, which will hurt a renter if he or she procrastinates. The options are 4-7 business days for $2.99 or 7-14 business days for free.

Norton Anthology of American Literature 7^th Edition: $27.63 (quarter, 85 days)

Common Sense by Thomas Paine: $38.71 (quarter)

Intermediate Accounting: $36.41 (quarter)

5. eCampus

eCampus “knows you’re broke. [They] make you less broke.” Enough said.

Pros:

• This site has a lot of options for shipping, so that renters can get their books as soon as they want. The options are 1 day shipping, 2 day shipping, UPS Standard Shipping (2-5 business days) and USPS (4-8 business days).
• The eCampus entourage program allows renters to make money when they refer their friends to the site. It’s $5 when friends sell a book, $5 when friends rent a book, $3 when friends buy a used book, $2 when friends buy an ebook and $1 when friends buy a new book. This sounds too good to be true.
• Free shipping on orders of $59 or more.
• Free return shipping back to eCampus from your home.
• There are three rental periods: Semester, Quarter and Short Term.

Cons:

• Unlike many of the other sites, eCampus has shipping fees when the books are sent to you, so renters should keep this in mind when comparing prices.
• Renters are unable to customize the date for the books to be returned, there are only fixed rental periods.
• Renters are only able to extend the rentals of 15 and 30 days at the time their orders are placed.

Norton Anthology of American Literature 7^th Edition: $34.20 (quarter)

Common Sense by Thomas Paine: $5.64 (quarter)

Intermediate Accounting: $81.60 (quarter)

Comparing prices from major rental textbook services is worth it, and students can save up to 80% of the print book price by renting instead of buying.

Photo Credits: LifeSupercharger

So where will you rent your textbooks this year?

My #1 choice? Chegg!