Posts Tagged ‘consumerist.com’

Chegg.com: Rent Textbooks, Save Money

Over at The Consumerist, they highlighted an article from Clark Howard on Chegg.com, a textbook rental service.

Chegg.com is like the Zappos of the Textbook industry, in a way, as you pay less for the book than you normally would, don’t pay for shipping back to their warehouse at the end of the semester, everything is recyclable and made of recyclable materials, and they plant a tree for every book rented.  Better yet, they offer a 30-day money-back guarantee if it turns out you don’t need the book, or the quality of the book is not what you had been promised.

Now, you may be asking yourself, what’s the catch?  Well, there really isn’t one that i can find.  The length of a rental is 125 days for those on the semester system, 85 days for those on the quarter system, and 60 days for those poor souls taking summer classes.  Considering that Marietta’s semester is 15 weeks long, and only uses 105 days, you’ll have plenty of time to ship the book back on time.

Their rental rates are based on supply and demand, so a popular book will be much more expensive to rent than a less popular one, so some savings may not be as good as others.

If you really fall in love with the book you rented, you can buy the book from Chegg (they charge you on top of what you paid for the rental and shipping, then tax is applied).  You can also extend rentals from 15 to 30 days, all the way up to another full semester.

On the flip side, a 25 percent penalty fee is assessed on books not postmarked by the return date listed on the account.  If your book is one week past due, you are charged the entire price of the book, as they assume you want to own it at that point.

The site has been around since 2004, and has claimed to have saved over $42 million dollars for students nationwide.  If you’re up for trying it out, then go for it.  It seems like the cheapest option out there, as far as textbook shopping goes.  Just remember that this is only one of many options, so make sure that you use our book-buying guide and save yourself some money this year!

Universities + Credit Card Companies = Profit for Both

But really, it just screws over the average student.

The Consumerist blog (which was recently purchased by the company that produces Consumer Reports) reported on a story that originally was published in the New York Times, detailing the relationship that most universities have with credit card companies.

In the first case they mention, Michigan State University gets $8.4 million dollars over seven years from Bank of America for student names and addresses, allows advertising on campus, and use of the school’s logos.

It lists examples where new freshmen were enticed with raffles, food, drinks, and other prizes in return for signing up for credit lines, often to unemployed students, up to $2,500.  Now that would be fine (I guess) if they actually attempted to educate those applying for cards on proper use of credit.  But there is more money to be made on credit than on people actually living within their means.

Honestly, I’ve been happy to never have a problem like the ones that are mentioned in the article.  There are no tents pushing free blankets for signing up for a credit card, no free food coupons for risking my credit history, nothing like that.  Maybe it helps that we are a smaller campus, and thusly, don’t have to worry about large banks trying to pay the college off for their own advancement.

Any readers ever have an issue with someone pushing credit cards at Marietta?