More and more college bookstores offering rentals

Students facing 'ridiculous' textbook prices get a bright spot
 November 8, 2010
BY KARA SPAK Staff Reporter

For college students and their parents, there's a small bright spot in the increasingly bleak world of college costs: the cost of textbooks.

That's because the number of college bookstores offering textbook rentals has exploded this year, leaping from just 300 nationwide in 2009 to 1,500 this year, according to the National Association of College Stores, which represents 3,000 college bookstores.

"The students have been grateful -- they want [books] to be cheaper," said Bradley Bridges, director of the Illini Union Bookstore at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. "The price of textbooks is really ridiculous. If a book that cost $150 cost $20, we wouldn't even be having this conversation." the rest image