The Gen Ed books were unusually expensive for me and I actually kept most of them unless the resale value was high. Although, the books that were required for my actual major were worth the money because they're great resource books --plus they have loads of photos and info. But for my major, Industrial Design, we had to spend a lot of money for the materials that we needed to make mockups, presentation materials, models, markers, sketching paper, and stuff in between, which would add up to $500+ per semester. So books were nothing compared to materials.