Several online sources allow students to buy their textbooks at reduced prices including Amazon and eBay. However, what many students don’t know is that a site is available that will allow students to rent their textbooks at a significant discount which is saving students hundreds of dollars per semester.
The online site, Chegg.com, offers students various options, which not only include renting their textbooks, but also allows them to purchase the books at fair market value if they so wish.
Chegg was founded in 2005 by Osman Rashid and Aayush Phumbhra in Santa Clara. Rashid and Phumbhra had trouble finding jobs after graduation because they couldn’t find employment without experience and couldn’t get experience without being on the job.
“The name Chegg was born by asking ourselves, ‘Which came first, the chicken or the egg?'” said Rashid. “It explained our post-graduation situation perfectly.”
Mark Adams, Cal State Bakersfield student majoring in liberal arts, said he’s been using Chegg for over three years and wouldn’t use anything else.
“The textbooks for my classes this semester would have cost me about $750 from the campus bookstore,” he said. “To rent my books from Chegg only cost me $155 and the return shipping will be free.”
Jane Foreman, Bakersfield College liberal arts major, conveyed that while she had an issue with Chegg, it was taken care of quickly.
“Nothing is ever perfect, especially when you’re dealing with a company that deals with as many students as Chegg does,” she said. “My issue was that shipping was one day later than they said it would be, and they refunded my shipping immediately. It’s definitely a site worth checking out.”
As of the end of April, Chegg claimed it has saved students almost $200 million.
Emily Davenport, BC nursing major, expressed her interest in using Chegg for the first time.
“I’ve never heard of Chegg before,” she said. “But I’m definitely going to have to use it if it saves that much on textbooks.”
Jesse Radonski, from the University of Oregon, is impressed with both saving money and the planting of trees, when books are rented or bought, to help save the earth.
“Wow, planting trees, that is awesome,” he said on the Chegg Web site. “I heard about the Web site in Newsweek and decided to go this route instead of the old ‘buying from the overpriced bookstore’ route.”
Chegg also has a program for students who want to promote the site by talking to their friends. The program, called Chegg Champions, assigns students a discount code that they can give their friends and family for an additional five percent off the total price of rental and shipping.
When the discount code is used, the site keeps track of how many times it’s applied by various students and then gives the owner of the discount code $5 per time the code is used in the form of a Visa debit card.
Janice Horace, Cal State Fresno student, said she made $200 at the beginning of the fall quarter because the discount code she gave to her friends was used so often.
“This is a killer program, being able to earn money every time someone uses your code,” she said. “I end up keeping the Visa card until the next quarter and then, in effect, my books end up being free to me.”
Interested students can learn more about Chegg or the Chegg Champions program by visiting www.chegg.com and www.cheggchampions.com.