Renting textbooks is never the way to go - sure you don't pay a lot in the long run, but unless you're using something fairly old, you can usually resell your text (if that's your thing) for less of a loss than that rental. Or for profit. [bigwords.com] and amazon marketplace have netted me some nice turnarounds (and you can usually do pretty well on campus as well, especially if you started in the fall - they don't usually switch books mid year)