I’ve been on a housecleaning tear lately, and one of the things I started to do was throw out my old business school textbooks.
I’m not sure why I still had them on my bookshelf; the books are all outdated, they’re not relevant to anything I’m doing, there is absolutely no resale value in them, and most of the stuff is out there on the Internet if I ever needed it. If I had to psychoanalyze myself, it could be that I’d paid about $150 each for them and there aren’t that many things in the world I pay that much money for only to toss into the trash. I think I’d considered selling them, but I’d only get pennies on the dollar. So I held on to them to see if they’d appreciate in value like gold or Apple stock (hint: they didn’t).
Such is the racket of college textbooks. I’m going to sound like an old fuddy-duddy, but if I had any advice to give to college students (who aren’t made of money to begin with), it’s to NOT buy your textbooks. Yes, as a college student I was conditioned to feel superior using my brand spanking new textbooks versus my classmates with the used textbooks. I was conditioned to think that somehow my grades would be better if I paid $150 for a book versus $10. But trust me, it’s all a scam.
I’m not even sure why it’s legal that a book that’s worth $10 sells for $150. Instead of investigating these corporations that are making a 8% profit margin instead of a 7% profit margin, I’m not sure why the government doesn’t investigate universities that charge students many times what it costs them to pay teacher’s salaries and maintain their facilities. But I digress. We keep paying, so they keep charging.
One reason I love
You start out by going to their site and searching for a book–for some schools you can even search by your school and course. You’ll be quoted a price to rent or buy the book. You can rent the book by the month or in some cases purchase an e-version of the book. In both cases you’ll likely end up paying 1/2 or less of the price it’d cost you to buy the book outright. In some cases when you rent the book, they’ll also give you temporary access to the e-version of the book while you wait. And all books have a 21-day money back guarantee.
If you’re afraid that you’re going to need to keep the book because it might come in handy later, trust me, I’ve had a bookshelf full of textbooks that have been unopened for 20 years. Besides, that’s what the Internet is for.
Let’s put it this another way. If I had taken the money I spent textbooks in college and bought Apple stock with that money, I’d have $85,714 right now. Instead, I have five useless and dusty books to show for it.
One reason I really respect Chegg is the charity work they do. Right on the bottom of their home page you can read about it. When they started their company, they resolved to help plant trees, which they do through American Forests–so not only does their service prevent $150 books from killing trees and piling up in landfills, they actually make up for those who do (they’ve planed over 5 million trees and counting). They also support Ashoka U, a non-profit that promotes social entrepreneurship, ONE.org to fight AIDS, and All Stars Helping Kids to help disadvantaged children.
Now for the deal-and-a-half. Click this link and you’ll get 5% Off Textbook Rentals at Chegg from 8/1/12 to 8/31/12. That’s even more money you can not pay the textbook gougers and invest for the future
