There are any number of reasons why a college student would choose to rent textbooks rather than buy them. The financial constraints of paying a person’s way through college is already costly. The price of books does not need to be added on to that already ballooning list of things which need to be bought.
Simple tuition fees often cost thousands of dollars per year. The average American student will pay $50,000 per year to be educated in tertiary education. That is an incredible amount of money which already cuts off far too many gifted youngsters from pursuing their goals through higher education. But that is not the only cost associated with paying one’s way through college.
There is also the need to pay for accommodation. This does not come cheaply, as anyone who has ever tried to buy or rent a house can attest to. Most people struggle with the payments on their home – and they are earning a full time monthly wage, not trying to get a small bar job which keeps them in clothes and food. Therefore, another huge chunk of cash must be kept aside to ensure that any student can remain in a house, rather than walking the streets with their term papers and a laptop in their bag.
The thousands of foreclosures indicate that this is difficult enough for the average American, never mind those who have only just come out of high school and are trying to make their way in the world. There are other associated problems too, which far too many people who have not gone through the education system seem to ignore or overlook when they consider the overall costs of taking such a step. Aside from the cost of paying for the teachers and the home a person can live in, there are any number of other fees.
In order to be able to afford a place to stay, many students have to pick a house which is far from campus. Often, this may not even be within walking distance for the best hikers. Therefore, they need to pay a daily bus fare, or the price of gas to fuel a car. All this adds up to make the costs seemingly insurmountable for the average young person. Getting a job can provide some respite. Bar work, or a part time job in sales which can be worked around the demands of the college education system, may well provide just enough to pay for the rent and for transport. The tuition fees will often come from a loan from parents or a particularly caring bank. Though it is worth noting that even that line of credit has suddenly disappeared thanks to the tightened financial world that everyone is living in nowadays.
This, of course, does not cover something which is vitally important to any human being in order to survive. Humans as a race cannot survive without food and water. Even for those who can bulk buy pasta and eat it dry for breakfast, lunch and dinner, there are still some costs involved. In the worst case, students may have to choose between books and food when it comes to purchases. Food cannot be rented. Books can.
The utility costs associated with living in a house and cooking food are another financial burden put on the shoulders of students. Gas and electricity costs money, and heating a home is a necessity in a cold, bleak winter. Therefore, the life of a student is not necessarily a happy one. They have to forgo many basic essentials – and almost all luxuries – in order to be able to make it out of college with some semblance of financial stability, rather than a crippling level of debt.
Even those who cut corners in every possible way often end up unhappy. The average student debt on graduation is ever increasing, and with diminished job prospects people are now unable to find the jobs to start paying off those monies owed to companies. There is a real risk of a lost generation of over educated, unemployed graduates who cannot do anything because of the severity of their debt.
Not having to worry about spending hundreds of dollars on textbooks every year can be helpful for people, then. The average college course requires a staggering number of reference works to be used. Because these are specialised in content and often produced in small print runs, they are increasingly rare to find and expensive to buy. Hundreds of dollars can be spent on books which are sometimes only read once and left to collect dust on a shelf.
It is this which is often most frustrating for students to find. There are a large amount of books required for the average course, many of which are only seen as optional reference works. They may have only a single page or paragraph which is relevant to the course, but many tutors expect their students to read it nonetheless.
Renting books gets around this problem of excessive outlay for minimal return. There is a small cost to rent, but it is a tiny fraction of the cost of buying some of the rarest textbooks, which can often cost $50 or more as standard. Even second hand books (which are often poor quality and full of complicated useless notes) cannot compete price wise with renting.
Many book stores are now offering book rental services as standard for their stores in and around college campuses. This is a boon for students, who are unable to afford the large list of books which are delivered to them at the start of every term time by course conveners. They can now read the entire reading list, but do so without breaking the bank, allowing them to focus their funds on more fundamental things such as food and lodging. The choice to rent textbooks, rather than buy them for a course, is a brilliant thing for students at campuses around the country and the world.