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Ask any college student and he will tell you how many dollars are being spent on classroom textbooks most of which they use only for four months or so. This is a hugely discouraging trend that students from state and private schools suffer from. Those who are willing to keep the books in good condition and return it back after use can opt for the smarter option of renting books instead of spending huge money purchasing them.

In fact, the phenomenon of renting textbooks is catching on like wildfire in colleges around the nation. This is an affordable and viable alternative to outright purchase of textbooks at the local bookstores.

Rhode Island College offers book renting facility online through their website bookrenter.com. This site offers book renting service to over 250 colleges across the nation. Students must order the books at the start of the semester and must return the books in a good condition after their classes are completed. This simple process saves a lot of money for students, money which they can towards tuition fee payment or for their accommodation.

The amount of money to be paid by the students differs depending on the textbooks they want but the dollars they save by renting books is significant. “Thinking Mathematically” is a book by Robert Blitzer that is required for Math 139. This book costs around $140.75, which is the money earned by an average college student every week. On Bookrenter, this book is offered on rent for just $61.35. By opting to rent this book, students save $79.

This site is highly reliable and offers affordable books. Books on rent can be ordered online and if the condition of the book is not up to the standard or not satisfactory enough, students receive another copy from the company free of charge. Books can be returned by students who decide not to avail of the service for whatever reason, within three weeks and obtain full refund. This is a much longer period as compared to other campus and off campus bookstores.

The irony is that this program is an excellent option for students to save a lot of dollars they would otherwise spend on textbooks used only for a semester, but not many RIC students are aware of the existence of such as facility offered by BookRenter. This is evident with the comment made by Tim Hordern the RIC sophomore that something that saves students so many dollars must not be kept quiet about.

There is no doubt that this is an excellent and viable solution and a great alternative to the very expensive and over priced college textbooks. Students who are responsible enough to return books in the condition they receive them in, can avail of this wonderful facility and save a lot of dollars they could use for other things.

More colleges could open book banks and help especially the poor, struggling students with the book renting facility that could make a huge difference to their higher education experience.