Great Job on this article!

Be sensible, not gullible. Do a little research and do the math: if you can get a good deal on a used book and then resell it online on ebay or half.com, ect, you would at least have SOME money coming back to look foward to when the quarter/semester ends to buy the next round of textbooks. I normally only loose 10 or 20 bucks when reselling a used book and SOMETIMES I EVEN MAKE A FEW BUCKS (if not at least brake even). Once a book is used, it doesn’t continually loose value like an automible. Take care of it and a few months later you can probably get all your money back.

RENTING a textbook usually runs me over 50 bucks (engineering and GE books alike). Once you pay up, ALL your money is gone INCLUDING THE BOOK EVENTUALLY!!! Then when the new quarter/semester comes, you have to pay up all over again with NO money back at all from your books.

RULE OF THUMB!!
**If the rental charge is not at least 50% LESS than the USED PRICE, don’t rent, buy used. Remember, your rental book will be in used condition anyway and it will eventually have to be returned, with the possibility of having to PAY EVEN MORE if you write on it, rip it, loose a page (happens often from poor binding), or return it late. I ADMIT, that sometimes you’ll be stuck with a book that you’ll never resell. But being a senior, and having taken at least 60 courses (and even MORE than 60 books) I have only been stuck with a handful of resellable books.
-for example, a rental place might compare thier $59 rental charge to a $150 NEW book. They fail to tell you its really a USED book rental that you can buy to own yourself from online stores or other students for around $80-$90 (as is my experience, sometimes I can haggle another 5-10 bucks) and I usually resell for close to that price. Then the new quarter starts and I have usually over $100 back to buy the next round of books.

Of course sometimes even the used prices are expensive because some greedy professor decides to use and REQUIRE ONLY the current edition with the current questions. If the book hasn’t been out longer than a year, the used prices are usually not that much cheaper. THEN I would recommend it when all else fails. Believe it or not, if you search hard enough, you may even (rare but has happened to me at least 3 times) find a pdf copy online FREE (I know some of you may be copyright nuts but understand we aren’t talking about a few $20 CDs or DVDs, we are talking about THOUSANDS of dollars on textbooks in a single academic career…the most common reason why many students cannot afford college).

I hate the predatory and greedy textbook industry that give incentives to professors, colleges, and universities, to require only the newest edition with the SAME material but just changing a few (usually only a few) study questons or changing thier order. Not only does that really put a hardship on students, it wastes ALOT of paper. ALOT! AND contributes more pollution (think of all the INK, PLASTIC, PAPER, and machinery waste gasses and energy requirements to continuously make these books in a system that is designed to make them useless as fast as possible)

That demand has highlighted a few issues:

1) Shipping speed. It may shock you to learn that many college students don’t plan ahead and buy their books well before they need them.

2) Selection. Popular textbooks have gone out of stock quickly at some textbook rental sites.

3) Terms. Some colleges offer 30 day classes, while textbook rental sites offer only four month or longer terms.

Several textbook rental sites have addressed all of these difficulties. the best I’ve found is National Book Rentals at http://nationalbookrentals.com. Bigger selection, more shipping options (at a reasonable price), and shorter rental terms (at a lower price).