Barnes & Noble Allows Students to Rent Textbooks

Move over Chegg.com. Barnes & Noble is entering the textbook rental arena.
Barnes & Noble is the largest bookstore chain in the country and has been the top selling chain for the past six years. Barnes & Noble sells most of its books through its almost 800 bookstores. However, its quickly growing website also offers over one million titles, and a new line of campus bookstores called Barnes & Noble College Bookstores operates at 636 colleges and universities.
So obviously, Barnes & Noble is a big company. And now, in an effort to help students combat the rising cost of college textbooks, Barnes & Noble is starting to rent its textbooks.
Students may rent their books from the Barnes & Noble website or from a bookstore. Textbooks are then shipped to a campus bookstore. There are currently 25 campus bookstores participating in the new program, including those at Ohio State University, the University of South Carolina, and the University of Maryland.
Barnes & Noble is offering textbooks at 42.5 percent of their original price. The average student spends $667 per year on textbooks. So if the average student rented all of their books from Barnes & Noble, they would only spend $283.48.
That’s a huge savings!
Barnes & Noble isn’t the only online textbook rental company. Other companies include Chegg.com and CampusBookRentals.com
Via SingersRoom.