Students

Rented Textbooks on the Amazon Kindle

Great news for penniless college students: Amazon is now offering rental textbooks to students. Here’s what you need to know about Amazon’s latest offering.

How Much Will Students Save?

News sources are reporting that the rented e-textbooks can save students up to 80% off the list price.

How Long are the Rental Periods?

Students can rent the book for anywhere from 30 days up to a year. After a year, they can opt to pay a per diem fee for the book’s usage or simply buy the books.

Will the Textbooks Only be Available for the Kindle?

Though the Kindle is the most obvious platform for the new textbook rental program, it won’t be the only one. Renting students can also access their books on any PC, Mac, or smartphone. Better yet, students can still access all their individual highlights or annotations after their rental period is finished.

What are the Benefits of E-textbooks?

In addition to the obvious monetary benefits, e-textbooks are ideal for students taking online college courses, since their entire learning experience is done electronically anyway. It’s also a godsend for students who are lugging a sack full of heavy textbooks and a laptop around all day. Commuting students, who must carry a full day’s worth of books and notes around, should be particularly interested in the e-textbook offerings.

What Could be Next?

Some experts are hoping to see rent-by-the-chapter options for professors who pick and choose their student’s reading material from a plethora of books. Others hope to see the Kindle’s price tag go down.

Rented Textbooks on the Amazon Kindle

Electronic books, which are commonly known as e-books, offer many advantages to the general reading community. Does this advantage extend to students who are earning a traditional or online college degree? Indeed, e-book studies indicate that students enjoy and benefit from investments in electronic textbooks.

Saving Trees

For the environmentally conscious student, electronic textbooks and e-books in general are a way to support society’s movement towards wasting less paper. Unless a student prints out an entire electronic textbook, investing in e-books is better for the environment than purchasing print textbooks.

Easy to Carry

Students who must carry a large number of books to class benefit from electronic textbooks. All that a student has to carry is his or her laptop containing dozens of electronic textbooks accessible with a few simple clicks.

Simplicity of Finding Information

An electronic textbook allows a student to use a search feature and quickly find the required page. There is no need to use post-its to mark a spot or remember which chapter discussed specific content.

Cheaper to Purchase

Electronic textbooks are generally about 50% cheaper than brand new print textbooks. For financially struggling students, this can make a difference between quickly finishing an online college degree and postponing obtaining a degree for many years.

Useful for Group Study

Electronic textbooks make it simple for students to study in groups. Attaching a laptop to a projector allows all students to view and discuss the material while looking at the same exact part of the book together.

While some students are accustomed to and prefer their textbooks to be in print, electronic textbooks offer enough advantages to become a more permanent wave in society’s academic future.