"Campus bookstores join the rental age"

DE PERE — Bojan Francuz, a St. Norbert College sophomore, usually buys his textbooks online.

But for the fall semester, he also rented four titles through the school bookstore's new rental program.

"I think the rental programs are great," said Francuz, who estimated he saved about $100. "Bookstores are expensive."

Local campus bookstores say they now are competing with online booksellers and students who buy and sell amongst themselves. Offering book rentals is one way to trim costs and remain competitive.

St. Norbert College launched its Rent-a-Text program for the fall semester, offering more than 200 of its 700 titles for loan.

Students at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay also can rent books beginning in fall, though on a smaller scale. The school is piloting a program that offers seven textbooks rentals.

College bookstore managers say they're sympathetic to the high cost of books and that rental could cut the price in half.

According to a 2005 study by the Government Accountability Office, the price of textbooks rose 6 percent each year from 1986 to 2004. The average U.S. college student spent $1,122 on textbooks for the 2009-2010 academic year, or a third more than five years earlier, according to the College Board, a nonprofit association made up of schools, colleges, universities and other educational organizations.

Follette Higher Education Group, the company that runs St. Norbert's bookstore, launched the Rent-a-Text program in 737 stores nationwide this school year.

"We did some testing at larger universities, and it did so well we added more stores in spring," said Monica Wittrock, who manages the St. Norbert Bookstore. "It's something that's popular with students."

Students could see the average cost of textbooks drop from $650 for the 2009 fall semester to $400 this fall, she estimated.

The program launched with national titles, which may be more likely to be used from semester to semester and, because Rent-a-Text is national, could allow books used at one campus one semester to be used somewhere else the next.

(2 of 2)

Books rent for half the cost on average. Students are expected to return books in reasonable condition, but are allowed to highlight or take notes in them. Students can buy the books if they decide during the semester they want to keep them. And if students don't return books by a deadline, they are required to buy the book.


"We've had a lot of interest; a lot of upper classmen are really excited," Wittrock said. "Just because they're so expensive."

A business law book selling for $290 new, for example, would rent for about $107. "In the business world, things are changing so fast; are they going to keep these books for reference?" Wittrock said.

"I think it's going to be a great experience for the student and hopefully continue to grow."

Things work a little differently at UW-Green Bay, which runs its own bookstore. The school must purchase books before it can rent them, so the school started small scale, Phoenix Bookstore manager Pat Sorellesaid.

It's offering seven titles in subjects across the board, mostly for larger freshman classes. Professors agreed to use the books for at least three years so the school can recoup costs, he said. Books will rent for 40 percent of purchase price.

"We'll give it a try and see what happens," Sorelle said. "We'll see what the response is, but I expect the program will only grow bigger."

UWGB decided to run the program internally to keep better control, he said. Its program will work much like St. Norbert's. UWGB students spend about $450 a semester on books.

Northeast Wisconsin Technical College likely will kick off a rental program in January, bookstore manager Bonnie Zima said.

Students asked for a rental program, but she said savings under the buy-back program are greater.

"We worked really hard in the past few years to beef up returns," Zima said. "Long-term, that's the best savings, but it seems like students want that short-term savings."

For example, if a student bought a new financial accounting textbook for $159 and sold it back for $120, their net cost would be $39. But it would cost $80.35 to rent, she said.

In an effort to evaluate whether to launch a program, the school examined the costs of books for accounting majors last year.

If an accounting student rented available books from rental site Chegg.com and bought the rest from the bookstore, they would spend $1,223 total for the entire program. If they bought NWTC's used books and sold them back to the school, the total net cost for the entire program would be $686.

However, schools don't always buy back books. Zima estimated NWTC bought back 23,800 books out of 65,200 sold last year. Many others were workbooks or practice sets that can't be repurchased, she said.

She still sees value in used-book programs.

"The perception is renting would save a lot of money, but that's not really the case," Zima said. "However, our goal is to meet the needs of the students, and this is what they want."