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| Photo Credit: Flickr Creative Commons |
When I attended the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in 2011, I sat in on a technology social media session with Wall Street Journal technology columnist Walt Mossberg. It was one of the best sessions that I attended at CES because Walt spoke about how the use of technology (mainly tablets) is changing the way students learn.
I can tell from watching my own son interact with a tablet that one day, most students will own a tablet and use it for a lot more than just email and games.
One of Walt Mossberg's predictions was that all textbooks would one day be digital and that the digital versions of the textbooks would need to be sold at an affordable price.
That prediction got me to thinking back to my time in college and the amount of money that I (and my parents) spent on buying my textbooks. Back then my only option was to go to the local campus bookstore and pay whatever the going price was for each book. And then sell the textbooks back to the same campus bookstore for whatever price they were willing to pay. Sometimes I was able to buy a textbook off of another student who had just taken the same class, but that did not happen very often.
In Walt Mossberg's CES presentation, he spoke about how students are paying a fortune for textbooks and how that is changing due to new options like textbook renting.
Since everyone can rent cars, designer handbags, and even wedding dresses, it makes perfect sense that students can now rent their textbooks. And companies like CampusBookRentals.com are making it easy for students to rent textbooks with perks that include -
- 40-90% off of bookstore prices
- FREE shipping both ways
- flexible renting periods
To give an example, take a typical textbook like Principles of Supply Chain Management where the list price for purchasing the book is around $177. The rental price for the same book on CampusBookRentals.com is currently between $20 - $25 depending on the length of rental.
Watch the video below to find out how renting textbooks work (click here if video is not visible)-
I remember once when I told my mom how much my textbooks were going to cost for my first semester of college, she sighed as she handed me the cash and asked me if the books were made of gold. I really wish I had had the option to rent my college textbooks back in the day - it would have saved my parents a ton of money and made my mom a whole lot happier.
So until Walt Mossberg's prediction of the future of affordable digital textbooks comes true, it is good to know that textbook renting is now an option for college students.
Enjoy!
Disclosure: I received a gift basket from CampusBookRentals.com as a thank you for sharing information about their website with my readers. All opinions are my own.
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