SELINSGROVE — Leigh Levandoski could have spent $189.50 on the big, thick textbook she needs for a business class this semester at Susquehanna University. But the senior from Wilkes-Barre went the way many college students go lately, and saved big; renting the textbook cost the 21-year-old just $85.28.

“If I felt I would need it (later,) I’d buy it,” said Levandoski, who is majoring in marketing and Spanish. “But it’s for a basic business class,” and if she changes her mind, buying the book is an option.

Textbooks cost big bucks — that’s the simple truth for college students everywhere. And in the 2008-09 school year, that truth equaled $483 per full-time student, according to the National Association of College Stores: $330 on new books, and $153 on used ones.

But like wedding gowns, bicycles, furniture and cars, college textbooks have found a place — a profitable one — in the rental market, and with staggeringly successful results. In two years, campus bookstores that offer book rentals rose from just dozens to about 1,500, according to the National Association of College Stores. Rent-A-Text, the service Susquehanna uses, has gone from a pilot program at 26 schools last year to a solid presence at more than 700 schools this year.

The past two to three years in particular have seen textbook rentals skyrocket. BookRenter.com, a San Mateo, Calif., online textbook rental leader, was founded in 2008 and claims it offers more than 3 million titles and serves more than 5,000 U.S. campuses.

Chegg.com, another leading online book rental company, in Santa Clara, Calif., was created in 2007 and works with 6,400 college campuses nationwide with more than 4.2 million titles in its catalog. It has partnerships with various publishers and also provides books through third parties dependent on inventory availability, said Tina Couch, vice president of public relations at Chegg. To give an idea of Chegg’s growth, Couch said that each time a student rents from Chegg.com, the company plants a tree in his honor. In January 2009, Chegg planted its millionth tree and has planted more than 3 million to date.

This is Susquehanna’s first year offering textbook rentals, though e-textbooks have been an option there for some time. It uses Rent-A-Text, run by the Follett Higher Education Group out of the campus bookstore.  

“As soon as we heard about this service, we pushed hard for it. We encourage students to use it,” said Mike Coyne, chief financial officer for Susquehanna. The savings opportunity is tremendous, he said, and fits with other rental programs the university offers, such as Hertz Connect rental cars and a forthcoming free bike program at the school.

Campus bookstore manager Kevin McCarty agrees.

“Over the last several years, there has been a tremendous spotlight on affordability,” he said. “Rent-A-Text helps drive down costs … and increase the accessibility to materials for students.”

Rent-A-Text pairs the convenience of a campus bookstore with the savings benefits of rental, McCarty said, noting that about 30 percent of the titles at the bookstore are available for rent. More are likely to be added next semester.

Bloomsburg University doesn’t yet offer textbook rentals but is looking into it for the semester starting in January, according to Beth Christian, university store manager. However, Bloomsburg’s bookstore is a student-run operation with particular factors to consider, she said.

The store is an independent corporation that is part of the Community Government Association of Bloomsburg University. Many of Pennsylvania’s state schools’ stores are run in this manner, she said; private schools either own their bookstores or lease them out through a deal with Barnes & Noble, as Bucknell University did in 2009. (Bucknell does not offer a textbook rental, but does offer an e-textbook program.)

“In our situation, we have a general policy of a 20 percent margin. If we buy a book for $80, we sell it for $100,” Christian said. “Most stores rent for 40 to 50 percent of the new book price. So if we rent it for 50 percent, and next semester the professor decides to use another book, we’ve lost 30 percent on the book.”

Christian said a textbook rental program at Bloomsburg would depend on professors using the same book, at a minimum, two times to preserve the margin the store would have made in one semester previously.

“We know it benefits the students in the end, and that’s our main goal,” Christian said.

Bloomsburg would likely operate its own rental program because of the setup at the school.

And as Levandoski’s experience shows, students do benefit. They can save as much as half the price of a book renting it over buying it, be it new or used. At the Susquehanna campus bookstore, Levandoski’s business class textbook was $189.50 new and $142.25 used. She’s also rented a book on operations management that would have set her back $184 if she bought it new. The rental price: $82.80. Three other texts Levandoski needed this semester she had to buy, and even used they cost her $90 each.

College textbook prices vary according to subject matter and other factors, but there are average prices. According to the National Association of College Stores, the 2008-09 school year averages were $64 for a new book, and $57 for a used one. The 2010 College Store Industry Financial Report stated that for every two new books sold, one used book was sold.

Used books, however, are not always an option, according to the National Association of College Stores. Among the factors, as Bloomsburg’s Christian noted, faculty must agree to use the same title from year to year, bookstores must get adoptions in time to obtain used books, and there has to be sufficient new text sales of the desired titles to come back into the market as used books.

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