The textbook monopoly scam was one of the first I noticed 35 years ago when I was in college. You can see the results of this even now on Amazon. If a particular book is a currently used textbook, the price is about 10 times what it should be. even used ones are expensive. Apparently, the monopolies buy up the used supply to control it. The moment these textbooks are no longer used in the classrooms, the new and used prices fall precipitously.