The typical American student spends between $700 and $1,000 every year on textbooks, according to a US  Dep. of Education study.  And that is after scholars or, rather more likely, their mother and father have dished up for class fees, accommodations, meal plans, lab costs, extra costs, and a washing list of other costs.  There’s excellent news.  Amazon is attempting to take some of the sting out of textbook sticker shock with its new textbook rental programme.  Under Amazon’s new programme, scholars can lease textbooks for 130-day periods, about the length of a semester, then ship the textbooks back to Amazon at no charge.  Amazon asserts its rental programme offers up to seventy p.c savings on textbooks compared to retail purchase costs.  Stephen King quiz : How well did you know his books?  “College is costly, and scholars are constantly looking for methods to economize on textbooks,” Ripley MacDonald, Director of Textbooks at Amazon.com, claimed in an announcement.  “With Textbook Rental, Amazon gives scholars yet one more sensible option for saving cash it’s now increasingly easy for scholars to get the books they require in the format they desire, at reasonable prices.” Most titles are available for rental at Amazon in the $30 to $60 range, according to PCMag, which found one macroeconomics textbook that ships for $170 available for rental on Amazon for approximately $46.  Here’s how it functions.  Textbooks ( new or second user, dependent on accessibility ) are shipped at standard costs and scholars may pay a charge for one 15-day extension after their 130-day rental period is over before shipping the book back to Amazon at no charge.  If scholars fail to return the book after the extension, they’re going to be charged the full cost of the book.

Amazon asserted renters can write or highlight in the books “a minimum amount,” but if books are returned with “excessive writing or highlighting,” scholars will be charged the full cost of the book, minus rental costs. This is not the only course for cash-strapped scholars.  Last summer, Amazon showcased its Kindle Textbook Rental service, which permits scholars to hire textbooks on their Kindles or Kindle applications for thirty to 360 days. Earlier in the year, Apple joined the e-textbook trend with the launching of iBooks2, which brings textbooks to the iPad.

Other smaller, enterprising corporations have been offering textbook rentals for a long time including CampusBookRentals.com, Chegg.com, and BookRenter.com.  They publicize savings of nearly ninety %.