Renting textbooks becoming a popular option for college students



MILWAUKEE (WITI) -- Between tuition, room and board and textbooks -- college is expensive! In an economy where the cost of higher education never seems to plateau, colleges and universities are coming up with ways to make college more affordable.

Zine Debruyn is a junior at Marquette University.

"I didn't realize how expensive books are until I came here," Debruyn said.

Debruyn says she pays $800 or $900 on books each semester.

A report released by the Government Accountability Office says textbook costs have increased 82% over the last decade, and continue to rise six percent a year.

However, Debruyn is able to save his dad some money by renting textbooks.

"Now that they started the rental program and the used books I mean, it helps out a lot, Debruyn said.

"As higher education costs go up, textbook costs are going up right along with the overall cost of higher education. If they choose to rent a book, they're going to save upwards of 50 percent of what the new book would cost and in some cases even more than that," Marquette University Bookstore Manager David Konkol said.

Konkol says the rental option has been available since 2010, and is becoming more popular. In fact, 75% of the materials in the bookstore are available to rent.

"We always say rent fearlessly, so if you rent a book you can highlight in it, you can take notes in the margin, you can doodle in it, you can draw pictures in it -- anything you want," Konkol said.

Other colleges and universities have options for textbook rentals -- but the choices are limited in some cases.

Others, like UW-Whitewater offer students the option to rent whatever they need at a flat rate.

The UW-Madison Bookstore doesn't offer rentals, but the private bookstore in Madison does offer rentals.

UW-Madison freshman Colin Taylor was going to buy all of his books brand new.

"Then it was about $1,100 so I decided to rent some of his books," Taylor's mother, Julie Taylor said.

The cost difference was $1,053.84 for brand new books compared with $913.51 rented -- a difference of $140.33, or $280.66 for the year.

"That's a flight ticket home round trip. We come from Boston so I think of that as an airline ticket for one of us to come visit," Julie Taylor said.

As far as book rentals go, if there is any excessive damage to any of the textbooks, students can be fined by the university.