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

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.

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?

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.

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.