College costs......Really???

Isn't it funny.......just when you think you might be a tad bit ahead of the game, something else comes up.....like college text books.  $563!!!  What's up with that?  I can go to Barnes and Noble and buy a big book for $40 or so.  Why are school books so stinkin' expensive.  Does it cost more to make these books?  Are these books written by Puliziter Prize winners?  Are the buy-back rates better than 25% of our cost?  And while we're on the subject of college, is it REALLY necessary for a girl who is majoring in speech pathology to take an aerobics class or a geography class or a computer science class.  Huh?  I can only imagine how much her graduate school will cost.  Wish we would have won the $355,000,000 lottery last night.  Joe had to take a class this past summer in order to renew his teaching license.  We had to pay $1300 for him to learn to relax.  But, by golly, his teaching certificate was renewed and now he can go back into the classroom and stress out.  I don't think we got our $1300 worth!!  They don't teach you how to deal with gang members or losers who have a GPA of 0.08.  While I'm complaining about the education system, Christina has to take a class that is only offered at night.  She will be out after dark from 6 until 9:15.  Just a couple of months ago, one of her roommates was assaulted at knifepoint in their apartment stairwell.  She ended up being admitted to the hospital.  Her being out after dark by herself does not give me a warm fuzzy feeling.  Now I have something else to worry about.  It was so much easier when they were all in preschool/elementary school.