This semester, the A&T campus bookstore, offers its students the opportunity to take part in its textbook rental, a program designed to lower the cost of students textbooks.

This option gives the student a chance to rent new or used books or buy them.

Though there is not a list of books available, the University Bookstore has made almost 60 of their most popular textbooks available.

Students can save up to 50 percent off the cost of a new book.

Carl Richardson, a senior agricultural education major, thinks it is “a great idea because buying books is so expensive and when you sell them back you don’t get half of what you pay for them. It’s a great move for A&T.”

In the last decade or so, students have begun to search for textbooks with more of an affordable price attached to them.

Students have begun to turn to internet based sites, such as Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com, and used bookstores like the Battleground bookstore, Edward McKays.

The new program hopes to prevent the hassle accompanied with these alternatives. Often students run into the problems of receiving the wrong book, paying shipping fees and delayed shipping.

“Rental would be nice and better. The books are high and it affects a student’s education because they don’t have books on time”, said Kimaya Johnson, a senior psychology major.  

Johnson also says that “students wait for their refund checks or use alternative methods so to buy books and by that time they miss out. Some alternative methods don’t work out because A&T forces their students to buy their own published books which can only be bought and sold on campus.”

Students who are interested in taking advantage of the textbook rental program are required to have a valid AggieOne card.

You can rent the textbooks when they are available then return them on or before May 13.

The bookstore will also send out an email reminder a few weeks before the rental due date.

“I think so. I hope so. We had a lot of students come in instead of ordering online. They don’t have to wait for shipping and we have rented a lot of books so far,” said Yolanda Rudison,

Textbook Manager, when asked if this option would bring students back to campus to buy books.

• Chanel Davis