ugh - i hear you!!! i graduated in 1998 - over 10 years ago - and i remember spending up to $1000 per SEMESTER in books for my classes...and i could never sell them back because my concentration was notorious for changing books every semester or year....so that also meant i could never buy used ones!
i remember for my math classes, we would have to get these small paper bound "books" from the flipping copy shop about the size of a composition notebook but not nearly as nice and those would be like $60....robbery i tell you!