How To Rent College Textbooks Online

by Rate Nerd on November 25, 2009

student-credit-cardsIf you want to save money on college textbooks – then rent them online instead of buying them.

Chegg.com, BookSwim.com and other textbook rental services are changing the way college students (and parents) get their books.

When using these online services, you find the books you need by searching with the ISBN number, author, title or keyword from an inventory of more than 2.4 million books. The results returned include rental price, rental term, due date and detailed information about the book. Once an order is placed, you receive your books within four to seven business days. When it is time to return the books, simply print a pre-paid shipping label and drop the books in the mail using the re-usable box that the books were originally delivered in.  Not only do you save a ton by renting, but there is no need to wait in line at the bookstore or worry about how little money you will get back for your books at the end of the semester.

You can save a lot of money this way.  One of the most popular Economics textbooks (Economics: Principles, Problems, and Policies) lists for $187.50, but can be rented for a semester for $11.99.  That pays for lots of pizza at midnight.

These are the same exact textbooks as you would get at the college bookstore. The rental companies purchase the books from the same publishers that the college bookstores do.  The only difference is that by renting the books, you save money compared to buying and returing the book at the end of the semerster.  If you want to buy the book, you are charged the price of the book minus the rental fee you have already paid.

There are no subscription fees to rent textbooks from Chegg.com.  BookSwim is different – is is like the “NetFlix” of books.  You pay $9.99 a month and get unlimited books delivered to your door.  There are a variety of rental terms you can choose from: 125 days, 85 days, and 60 days.  There are also options to extend or purchase your book.  Highlighting in the book is acceptable within reason. Most ask that you are considerate while using the book; a book returned with every line of every page highlighted is overdoing it.


Rent Textbooks & Save 60-75%

Related Posts with Thumbnails
Digg This
Reddit This
Stumble Now!
Buzz This
Vote on DZone
Share on Facebook
Bookmark this on Delicious
Kick It on DotNetKicks.com
Shout it
Share on LinkedIn
Bookmark this on Technorati
Post on Twitter
Google Buzz (aka. Google Reader)
Be sure to check out the latest bank rates, cd rates, mortgage rates and top deals on RateNerd.

Sign Up For Updates

Subscribe to our updates via Twitter, email, or RSS to receive daily deals and other posts from RateNerd daily.

Subscribe via Twitter.

Subscribe via RSS.

{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }

Patrick October 27, 2010 at 12:40 pm

I love using Chegg to rent textbooks and save a lot of money! I wanted to share a Chegg Champion code that your readers can use to get a discount on their text order. Put in the code when ordering and hit the “apply” button. The code also gives you back an additional $5 when selling Chegg your used texts.

The code does not have an expiration date so it can be used with every order. Here it is:

CC123047

Feel free to share the code with friends to save money.

Leave a Comment

{ 1 trackback }