Texbook publishers to offer book rental option to students.

With college textbooks averaging $100 a piece, it is no secret that they represent one of the biggest expenses for college students who spend between $700 and $1,100 a year in that category.
This is not new considered the fact that a 2004 federal study found that textbooks prices nearly tripled from 1986 to 2004, rising an average of 6 percent a year or twice the inflation rate, according to the New York Times.
And as private companies have moved in to offer textbook rentals as an alternative to buying textbooks straight up, the nation leading textbook publishers have taken notice.
Just last week, one of them, Cengage Learning announced that it would start renting books to college students this year at 40 percent to 70 percent of the retail price the New York Times said.
With Cengage’s rental option, students will get immediate access to the first chapter of the book in e-book format, and can choose from a menu of shipping options for the printed book. At the end of the rental period, usually 60, 90 or 130 days, students can either return the textbook or buy it.
Other power houses in the textbooks business have jumped into the trend with Follett Higher Education Group, which manages more than 850 college bookstores, starting a pilot rental program this fall at about a dozen stores, including those at the State University at Buffalo, Grand Rapids Community College in Michigan, and California State University at Sacramento. The stores will offer about 20 percent of their titles for rent, charging 42.5 percent of the purchase price.


For more, see NYTimes.com