For this school year, Distaola added that Follett plans to use a $120 million expansion to reach more than half of the schools it provides with textbooks through its rental program by the fall of 2010. Students can also purchase the textbook during the rental period if they want to keep it. «You get a refund for the rental price and then pay the full price of the book,» Berger said. You can return your rental(s) in person to the university bookstore or return them before the due date. Amy Berger, manager of the matador Bookstore store, said that all you need to bring with you to rent a book is «a valid driver`s license, a credit card, then fill out the lease, take it to check and we`ll take a print of the credit card, sign the rental, and you`re good to go.» You can return your rental(s) which must/must arrive no later than the due date of December 18, 2021. In other words, the exorbitant cost of books means that students do not have full access to the education they already pay for. That`s where textbook lending comes in, with bookstores on campuses and online businesses like Chegg.com and Bookrenters.com proclaiming the power to save poor and financially struggling students from the fate of unpreparedness. As Inside Higher Ed recently explained through inclusive access agreements, «If students want to download the content to access beyond the duration of their course, there is often an additional fee.» Meanwhile, students` access to texts during the semester usually depends on Wi-Fi access, as the books themselves cannot be downloaded. But this example, as insignificant as it is, illustrates only a few of the changes brought to higher education by the book rental industry. What is also worrying is that the working class and first-generation students are disproportionately affected by the textbook lending system, which is called «best value for money» for budget-conscious consumers. Renting a book may seem economically viable at first glance, as it can cost 20-30% less than buying one, but the practice harms students in the long run by preventing them from measuring their own progress, accessing texts and grades from previous classes or assignments, and viewing the impact of their education as cumulative. This, and it often costs them more.
But they must: Most owners only grant the narrowest windows (usually 30 days), which allows a student to change their mind and decide to buy the book already rented. After that, they are bound by the terms of their lease and have the task of returning the book, no matter how useful it is. Autumn 2021 Rental returns are due no later than Saturday, December 18, 2021 at 15:00. Rentals must be received no later than the due date of the return of the rental. Rentals not received on or before the due date are subject to replacement costs and fees as specified in the rental agreement. Similar restrictions apply to e-books and digital editions licensed to the user from month to month: students lose access to these texts forever after the expiration of the rental period, unless they are willing to register again. Similarly, the recent growth of the inclusive access model, which aggregates digital spending and enrolls entire courses to receive at a discounted price, with costs being directly integrated into students` tuition fees, favoring digital rental and preventing continued engagement with these types of texts after the course ends. According to a recent press release, Follett Higher Education Group, which supplies textbooks and other materials to about 850 university bookstores, used the last semester as a pilot project to test its textbook loan program. Student feedback showed that the program has been very successful, allowing an expansion of a few titles to more than 11,000 classes to choose from. Go to our one-stop shop in front of the university bookstore to return your rental(s) no later than the december 18 due date. It`s about buying the books I need to teach, which I only need for a few months, as he tells me.
Instead, the ad tries to get me to rent the barely needed books because, she promises, it will «save a ton.» There`s a handy little button that points directly to the rental section of my campus bookstore website, and it offers an additional incentive, this time in capital letters: RENT THESE BOOKS. Students who are familiar with textbook rental consider it a better option than buying textbooks. For example, a brand new edition of Mathematical Statistics and Data Analysis costs $208, while the used book costs $156. Renting the book costs less than half the price of the new textbook and costs $82.35. Over the past decade, textbook consumers` options have expanded significantly, partly explaining the resulting mismatch between average spending habits and average book costs. Online retailers, operating independently or through Amazon.com, are now spending used and digital editions for students, giving campus bookstores an almost literal race for their money (literally). «Our rental program offers students the lowest cost in advance. All of our titles are selected and discussed in person with faculty and campus staff, and if students add or cancel courses, the bookstore can also make those changes immediately,» Distaola said. A degree meant learning from texts while accumulating a cumulative supply of skills and reference documents. But with the advent of textbook rentals, learning rules are being rewritten, not by education professionals, nor according to the needs of consumer students. Even worse, rental companies and vendors — including campus bookstores — actively discourage students` efforts to use the texts they rent, as wear and tear threatens the longevity of a book the seller wants to see rented over and over again.
Amazon and Barnes and Noble, for example, warn students to continue writing and highlighting at a minimum and reserve the right to charge the student a «redemption price» in the event of an «excessive» markup, which is usually similar to the cost of a new unused expense. Matador Bookstore`s textbook rental program, which offers students the opportunity to rent new and used books for 50% of the list price, expands its selection of a few titles from last fall to more than 500 this semester. Renting is by far the predominant way to acquire books on my campus, which I originally thought was a sign of good old-fashioned savings in the Midwest. But as I talked to my students, I learned that there is much more to history when it comes to renting. For example, when I asked a class of English students why they overwhelmingly chose to rent their printed copies of Portnoy`s Complaint (given that used ones sell on Amazon for only $1.99), they looked at me in a way that suggested I might be as crazy as Roth`s protagonist. Why shouldn`t they rent? And besides, they explained, the campus bookstore only offers loaned copies. But that`s exactly what retailers rely on. In the jargon of the rental industry, this is called a break, and booksellers, just like car rental companies, assume that a percentage of tenants (10 to 20%, in the case of textbook tenants) will eventually break the terms of their contracts.
You will be forced to pay the market price for a new replacement, even if the seller originally purchased the item at cost, allowing the retailer to make a profit. «Renting is less than anything else,» Stuart said. «Amazon is much cheaper, but I only shop at the bookstore because the CSUN bookstore has some books I need, and Rent-a-Text is cheaper.» In fact, the working class and first-generation students are suffering the most from the growth in textbook rentals, which reflects the type of manipulative lending and leasing practices seen in other industries. Education specialist Mike Caulfield, for example, compares book rentals to the phenomenon of pill splitting, where consumers try not to pay too much for prescription drugs by buying higher-dose prescriptions and then cutting their pills in half. The dangers associated with splitting pills are serious (and include the possibility of an overdose), but working-class consumers tend to ignore it in their search for an economically viable way to get what they need. Is technology the best way to stop online fraud? No, say experts: better teaching is. This series of questions has occupied education professionals in recent years, supported in part by reports showing that the cost of textbooks is three times higher than the rate of inflation. .