Anything involving college will cost a million times more than expected

This is precisely how I found myself with a billion student loans

I'd contact the retailer and ask if it was just a mishap that the codes were missing

Normally if you contact the supplier they will give you a partial refund for the missing items which should cover the price of buying them separately.

They're defective and not as described then - return them and get them somewhere else

Tell them they didn't follow their code of conduct.

If they were advertised that they came with codes you should be able to contact the seller and get them without paying for new ones. It's really not that difficult.

My books were going to cost nearly $700 this year, so I know the feeling OP. It's definitely worth shopping around a bit on various sites to try to find the best prices or rent instead of buying outright though (especially from Amazon or your school bookstore).

I try to rent whenever possible or find the textbook online so was able to bring the price down to around $130 collectively. That's with having to pay $100 or so for one of those pesky online codes. Another tip is to contact your professor ahead of time to see if an older textbook would suffice if you purchase the necessary codes seperately. Sometimes you don't even need the new $200 book and a $10 or $20 older one would be fine. If the books were advertised with code you should also be able to return them for a proper copy as well.

I paid $187 for my calculus 2 book. After I opened it, someone offered an old one for $5. I couldn't return the new one because I already opened it...

Exactly. Sometimes only one or two pages are different, or a few tiny bits here and there. Why spend a freakish amount of money when you don't need to?

You guys have to pay tuition and still spend this much on textbooks you need for your courses? That's outrageous!

Welcome to America: Where you practically have to sell your soul in loans to acquire the college degree your chosen career requires to be able to (hopefully) pay off the loans.

$200 is modest. Though it seems like it's only one class.

Honestly $200 is actually not that much. My first semester of first year, I bought textbooks from the university book store, it cost $650 for 5 books. After that I refused to buy there again. I always rent now, it comes to about $200 usually for the whole order. Bookstores at the schools are a rip off. Worst part is, I find the books are rarely as "required" as profs make them out to be.
Oh, sometimes you can also sell them back to the school, I think I got about $60 back from my original $650. Ridiculous.

My school had a student run textbook site where you can meet other students (safely, on campus) to buy lower and sell higher, usually almost good enough to break even. See if something like that exists at your school. If not, organize it; you could do a lot of good. School books really should be mostly free anyways...

Pretty sure this was for one book/class. Probably she can only afford to take one at a time with these prices

At this rate, it will be cheaper for you to fly out and enroll in a European university.
I never had to pay for any textbooks required for my courses. There even were these two professors that wrote a math textbook and let the students from the whole university use it for free.

It actually is cheaper to get a visa, fly to Europe, find somewhere to board, and attend university there than it is to live at home with your parents while attending in the US. The education is far superior as well. Most can't though because they have kids, work 2-3 jobs that they can't leave, or have other obligations.

I hope you found this out shortly after buying rather than buying months ago and only waiting till class to work it out. Hopefully you can still get your money back or code sent to you! My friend bought his textbook months before the course, didn't realise it was in fricking German till it was waaaaay past the point of returns and refunds.

Was it for a German language course?

I'm going to say no, or otherwise a different language wouldn't have been an issue.

I have lost all faith in the intelligence in humanity by now, to the point where I feel someone returning a German textbook for being in German would be a very real possibility.

Either you didn't read the fine print at the bottom of the website, or they're falsely advertising their products. Call them and see if you can return them, or get the codes for less money. Or you can just return them and shop around for cheaper books, or just pay the $90 per code.

Two things are to say:
One: wait to order your books until your first class to see if you actually need them.
Two: I know they're a bitch (because of the price) to get in the bookstore but it's better to get it from the college then to get it from an online website. Because you never know if you're going to have all you need.

So I'm saying you kind of deserve that but I hope you do get it worked out.