Excluding textbooks for classes, I bought this for ~$300 (several several years ago as a special treat)
Most of my collection is thrifted/bought from garage sales (for a quarter to a dollar usually) but I do have a handful of nicer ones.
I had to buy this giant Economics textbook, only for the teacher to create video lessons per chapter about which parts from it can be scrapped. Over three quarters ended up scrapped.
A racket indeed.