Textbook rental services are on the rise as college students look for ways to save money when buying textbooks.

By Alissa Figueroa, Correspondent / August 9, 2010

Textbook rental is becoming an increasingly popular choice for college students, who’ve seen book prices surge in recent years.

Students can cut their upfront costs in half by renting, rather than buying a textbook, according to the National Association of College Stores, a a trade group for textbook vendors.

And retailers across the country are responding, with local college bookstores opening their own rental services to compete with online book rental sites, like bookrenter.com, which offers free shipping and access to some 3 million titles through a partnership with Amazon.

The National Association of College Stores says about half of its 3,000 member stores will offer book rentals this year. That's some 1,500 independent college bookstores, up from only 200 to 300 last fall.

Barnes & Noble announced on Monday that it, too, would expand its pilot textbook rental program, started in January, to include all of its 637 college bookstores. Students can also rent textbooks from the company’s website.

But aren't paper textbooks (whose cost has increase at twice the rate of inflation over the last two decades, according to the Government Accountability Office) a bit, well, last semester?

For students looking for digitized alternatives, their options are growing as well. Last week, Barnes & Noble announced its new NOOKstudy software package, which students can download for free to access the bookseller’s digital textbooks.

The service allows students to tag, highlight, search, and take notes on their e-textbooks, and offers the option to rent a digital book for the semester at a reduced price.

Contrary to what its name suggests, NOOKstudy is not accessible from Barnes & Noble’s e-reader, the nook, or another mobile device – it can only be downloaded onto a PC or a Mac. Smaller devices are not suitable for viewing textbooks’ graphic-heavy pages, says the booksellers’ website.

The makers of Amazon’s Kindle e-reader thought they’d solved that problem with the Kindle DX, a wider version of the original e-reader designed to make reading academic texts easier.

Last year, the company gave students at seven universities access to the devices with their class materials preloaded onto them.

But as the Village Voice reported last month, the experiment didn’t go very well – several students given Kindles bought the physical textbooks for their classes instead, citing difficulty in taking notes, navigating the books, and reading the color graphics that were shown in black and white.

Of course, there is also the cost of e-readers themselves, which, at around $150 to $200 are a steep investment for any student on a budget.

Another option could be open-source textbooks, as are available on curriki.org, a nonprofit that seeks to provide "universal access to free curricula and instructional materials for grades K-12," according to its website. For college professors, though, who are generally very specific about which textbook their students work from, it could be a long time before open-source curricula are adopted widely.

By JEFF D. OPDYKE

It's a simple calculus, kids and money: From birth until college graduation, children consume dollars like they're chicken nuggets.

For those of us who aren't independently wealthy, that puts unrelenting pressure on the family pocketbook. The financial demands of raising a child require that money you otherwise might use to prepare for retirement, or to save for a nicer house, a sportier car or a swankier vacation, must, out of necessity, be earmarked for Lego sets and pediatrician visits and school uniforms and Christmas toys and a college savings account and a minivan and a trip to Disneyland ... and lots of, well, chicken nuggets.

I'm not saying this to disparage kids. I have two of my own, and money is nothing in comparison to the happiness they bring me and my wife. Yet happiness does not negate the fact that the moment a child arrives -- and, actually, months before the arrival -- your role as an adult changes in dramatic, profound ways.

And so, too, does your family's financial life.

Not only are you now on the hook for tens of thousands of dollars in costs over the next two decades, you also have a new obligation to teach your children about money so that they grow into adults who are at home in the financial world and who have a healthy relationship with money. You, the parent, are the first and most crucial link in that learning process.

A Lot to Teach

I know that money seems a simple technology and one that wouldn't seem to require much handholding. After all, you've been spending it yourself since you were a kid, and you've been earning it at least a few years. What more is there to know about it, really? And what more do you really need to teach your kids that you don't already know yourself? Well, if statistics are any indicator, a lot.

In measuring how well 12th graders understand the basics of personal finance, the nonprofit Jump$tart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy found that a measly 10% could satisfactorily answer questions about personal finance. Many had no clue how to balance a checkbook. Over all, about half the students failed a test on basic personal-finance literacy.

Yet life as an adult clearly requires knowledge of personal finance. That doesn't mean your child needs an M.B.A. in security analysis or that you need to hire a financial adviser to tutor your preschooler. But kids obviously need better information to more effectively manage their own financial resources one day.

Kids have an infinite ability to hear what parents say, even in those moments we're convinced they haven't heard a word we uttered. Moreover, the concept you're pushing might not sink in the first time. Or the third time. Or the eighth time. But there will come a moment when you say what you need to say for the umpteenth time, and the way you phrase it or the mood of the moment or the experience your child just had will cause your lesson, almost miraculously, to suddenly resonate.

Of course, you might not know it at that moment. You will know it, though, when you see or hear your lessons in action.

Driving back from one of my son's soccer games a year or so ago, a flashy Italian sports car pulled up alongside of us on the freeway and the teammate riding home with us said, "Wow, that guy's rich."

My son, engrossed in a handheld videogame, looked up to glance at the roadster and reflexively replied, "It's not how much money you spend that makes you rich. You don't know; that guy might have spent all his money just to buy that car and he has nothing else. So he might not be rich at all."

Here he was casually correcting a teammate about what is and isn't the definition of wealth, barely having to think about what he was saying. The words were coming out effortlessly. Mom and Dad, he proved, really can make a difference when they set out to instill a bit of financial wisdom in their children.

But my son's commentary was not based on a one-off lecture I'd given him. The lessons had begun early and his mom and I reiterated them time and again.

Make a First Impression

Kids are far more impressionable when they're younger and much less likely to have any sort of experiences outside the family cocoon that could shape their thinking before you do. That's not to say you can't erase the habits or beliefs they pick up, but by the time they're hardened teenagers, your messages won't resonate nearly as strongly.

Ultimately, the aim isn't to mold children who only care about financial riches.. It's to raise children who grow into adults who are financially aware and who are comfortable managing the various aspects of money -- whether spending, saving, investing or giving back.

Maybe your child does accumulate financial riches. Maybe not. But the true measure of your success in this endeavor is that your child, as an adult, never struggles to understand the basics of personal finance.

That will prove a far greater legacy than any inheritance you might one day leave behind.

Write to Jeff D. Opdyke at jeff.opdyke@wsj.com

This Saturday Night Live Skit is the funniest thing I have seen in a long time.  

http://www.hulu.com/watch/1389/saturday-night-live-dont-buy-stuff

"When a family member wants to give our children a gift, we suggest they buy them dance or swim lessons.  We also request gift cards to such places as pottery-making stores or Build-A-Bear Workshop, which we can use any time of the year.  Our children do receive some regular presents for holidays and birthdays, but getting a few lesssons and gift cards means they aren't overwhelmed with stuff at the holidays.  Plus, they get to reap the benefits all year long."  Jessica Brown (from an article in Family Fun Magazine)

"One of our favorite outings is to the zoo, but for our family of eight, it's cost-prohibitive.  That's why when Christmastime comes around, and relatives ask us what to get the kids, we ask for annual passes to the zoo.  For several years, two uncles have in together to get us a deluxe pass.  It saves us a lot of money, and, for the uncles, buying just one big present is much cheaper and less stressful than buying for six nieces and nephews!" Debbe Carson (From an article in Family Fun Magazine)

The systems which are in place today seem to be set up to make us debtors. We hold personal accountability for the things we do financially (and otherwise), but between student loans and credit card debt, a person coming out of college can very well have a difficult "fresh start".  Remember, student loans are one of the only loan not forgiven in a bankruptcy. 

I don't know about you, but when I was in college, hand me down/goodwill furniture and I ate hamburger helper.  Trying to keep up the standard of living of your parents and/or friends will never allow you to live within your financial truth.

The following quote was an excerpt from Peter Walsh's book It's All Too Much

"It may not seem obvious, but there is a connection between debt and clutter. I'm not talking about home, school, or car loans. Those loans tend to have resonable interest rates, but credit card debt is a real devil, and it is always the result of inappropriate acquisition of goods. The average American family owes $9,200 in credit card debt. Some of us get sucked into credit card debt when we're youn, unemployed, and/or vulnerable. Who can blame us when companies are aggressively marketing credit cards to college students and bankruptcy filers? With credit cards at their disposal in college, kids try to duplicate the standard of living they had with their families. They develop a sense that they can acquire whatever they want. Kids come out of school and instead of starting from scratch, they are starting out with debt, and the worst kind: credit card debt. And once you've got a little debt, it's a hard habit to break.

When it comes to managing your credit cards, you need to establish routines and set limits. Sound familiar? It's the same thing I told you to teach you children. Limited space equals limited toys. Limited funds equals limited spending. Trust me, no matter how much you want that stereo or that new car, excess spending will bring you more grief in the long run."