SFGate took a look at all the ways today’s student can purchase access to a textbook—buying the latest print edition, buying used or older editions, and buying or renting digital editions—and found that thanks to high pricing and inflexible rental periods, going digital is only occasionally a good solution:

Each textbook will have a unique set of prices for its different versions, so it makes sense to consider e-textbook rental on a case-by-case basis. However, for the time being it appears that e-textbook rental will only save students money when having a new edition of a textbook is important, and when students are free to choose the length of the rental period. Cost-conscious students should compare prices across vendors and consider used and older editions of textbooks to save the most money.

Via No Shelf Required

1 COMMENT

  1. Yes! i really didn’t want to pay full price for all the textbooks i needed at university so i searched for a good quality website and found http://www.blikbook.com/ its pretty good, saved me loads of money and the way that they present the eBook is good and it had all the features i would have wanted out of a hard copy book like highlighting and annotation options.

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