Also, remember, just like tuition, the further back you went to college, the lower the cost (in current dollars) would have been.

I will say that ebay and used booksellers online now cut my textbook costs in half for my masters degree, over what I would have paid at the bookstore. I'm pretty sure I could get just about the same price in selling them online after the semister is over, but I tend to even keep textbooks for some reason.

By far I think that this is the most expensive aspect of attending school. For each class you need the standard text publication as well as lab fees. Between books and lab fees all of your expected return money is gone. Even if you have the opportunity to get used books and them sale them back later after you finished that class the cost is still pretty steep.

Wondering if there is some sort of governement bail-out aligned to help with this probelm that teenagers are witnessing as the expectation of fininshing school is made known as a financial burden?

It depends largely on where you purchase the books. Finding them online is a lot of work, but it often saved me 50% even when giving priority to used books from the campus shop.

And you can usually sell them back for about the same.