This week Amazon.com announced an eBook rental program for college textbooks with savings of up to 80% off. While not a new concept foronline college students, the advent of eBook college textbook rentals brings online and traditional colleges closer together for a more blended learning approach.

The Pros of eBook Textbook Rental

• You save money on your college textbooks up front, eliminating the need to resell them
• You can decide how much time you want to rent the textbook for, from 30 days up to 360 days
• You can access the eBooks on a variety of devices, including your Mac, PC, iPod, Android device, iPad, Kindle, and more
• You can extend your rental period by as little as one day
• You can make digital notes and access them even after your rental period has expired
• You save time by going to the bookstore to buy the books and then trying to sell them back

The Cons of eBook Textbook Rental

• There goes reselling textbooks at the end of the semester = no extra spending money. But let’s be honest, it’s not like you recouped the majority of your investment anyway!

Amazon Student

Now, even if you’re not on board with eBooks, Amazon has a special deal called Amazon Student which includes:

• Unlimited Amazon Prime free two-day shipping
• No minimum order sizes
• Free for college students

Have you ever bought an eBook college textbook before? Would you consider making the switch to digital textbooks when you go back to college in the fall?