Okay in the US, textbooks are exorbitantly high. And what kills me is that some textbook maker would come out a new edition and there are minor changes in the old edition. So what is a student to do when they know they are going to use these books only once?
They go online and purchase it cheaper. One place is half.com. They sometimes have the best price on books but again timing is everything. Hence as a student, you have to be a bit more proactive about things. What you can do is order the books that you need as soon as you find out what books you need. That would entail asking the professor of the course for the book title, visiting the campus bookstore and writing down the ISBN number, etc. When II was in school, I did this in months in advance. True I would end up with the international edition but hey as long as it was in English, I could care less.