"You can rent an apartment, a car or a DVD. Now add college textbooks to the list expensive items that people are renting because they are short on cash or looking for a better deal."Students at theUniversity of Texas at Arlington and the University of North Texas can lease some textbooks through their campus bookstore, while others can find deals through a growing number of online rental sites – think Netflix for English lit and calculus.
Meanwhile, a few professors and colleges are experimenting with free online textbooks.
There's good reason for the demand. College students can expect to shell out more than $1,000 on textbooks over the academic year, according to the Southern Regional Education Board. While that's still a fraction of tuition and fees, the high cost prompts plenty of gripes.
"It comes to a point where you feel like you have to take out a separate loan just for your textbooks," said Branden Scott, a sophomore at UNT.
Scott rented a $70 textbook for his English class through UNT's bookstore. The price for a semester-long rental: about $25.
"I was in a rush to get my textbooks for the cheapest prices I could," he said