Some tips from a former text manager (Score 1)

As a former college bookstore manager, I agree to blame the publishers, but not the bookstores. Alot of those university bookstores out there are actually in the red (mostly due to poor management, sure)--but the publishers are the ones that jack up the prices and come out with new additions, as you say, every two years or so, and talk profs into using them.

Sure, the bookstores are a business and they raise prices to make money; but unlike alot of other industries, they let you sell back your used textbooks at the end of term for as much as 75% of the original value. Can't do that with a pair of Nikes. I know what you're all saying, you tried to sell back your books and got bupkis for the one you paid $150 for because it wasn't being used the following term. Well, here are some tips--those books aren't just being used at your school, they get used all over the country and just about any bookstore will buy them back--shop around!

And another thing, never buy new--if you wait a week into classes, it's almost a guarantee that even the new-edition book will have been returned by some poor goof that bought it, wrote in it, and then decided to drop the class. His stupidity is your fortune.

Course, you could always do what I did--my first two years, I worked in a copy store (ahem, ahem); my last two years, I worked in the bookstore and convinced them to let me borrow my books if I promised extra nice to keep them in mint condition.