College Crunch

For countless generations of students there has been a constant complaint that usually can be heard loudest in the first few weeks of college, every school year. It occurs in these initial few weeks when the majority of students go and purchase their text books and discover that they have to pay astronomical prices to get copies of these books. Finally a publishing company has come out and implemented a way for students to avoid paying these astronomical prices for textbooks. You can now rent them!

The company, Cengage Learning has suggested that its rentals would be 40 and up to 70% cheaper than actually having to purchase the books. Starting in December the company will be releasing its first batch of rentable books, saving thousands of student dollars in these especially tough times. It’s actually quite surprising it has taken this long for a company to think of such a brilliant but obvious business idea. Although normally students can rent textbooks through means such as Chegg.com or Bookrenter.com but typically publishers are cut out of the deal, making the prices to rent these books not all that attractive.

With a publisher on board in Cengage Learning, prices can be reduced dramatically making the option of renting text books really attractive. They can do this because Cengage Learning will be able to attract a fee several times on the one book, both paying for the cost of the book and making a profit. Whilst at the same time minimizing the cost for the individual borrower. Making it far more attractive cost wise than having the student have to buy it. That is only the case though if the student doesn’t lose it or burn it in some college ritual.

Upon renting a book from the publisher, students would have automatic access to an electronic copy of the first chapter. From there, the book would be shipped to the student’s address. Once the student is done with the textbook, he or she would simply need to ship it back to the publisher.

Books and the selling of books are undergoing a massive transformation at the moment. With the Kindle being introduced and the prevalent view that electronic versions of books are going to become more popular than real live books, the book industry is changing at a rapid rate and so far it seems that this change could help the average student or consumer save costs and provide a higher level of convenience.