How can they affored thoses books?

this is how it works for my school. the school buys all the textbook. they borrow the books to students to use for the whole year. you can spend 5 dollars for a textbook that cost $50 but you just cant keep it after you finished using it.

In India, It is very cheaper. I think it also relate with living style. In USA cost of living is high than lots of other country. So compare to other country they will find everything in high cost.

In my country we can borrow the books from the school during elementary school and high school, but books for university and other schools are really expensive. When I went to nursing school, some of the books cost about $100 or more, so it gets really expensive if you have to buy them all.

The students from my class chose to borrow some of the books from the library and photocopy the books. We had to pay for the copies of course, but it is less expensive than buying the books. Sometimes a group of students decide to share the books, so that each student doesn't have to buy every book, but this is not a very good solution, because sometimes we all want to use the book at the same time, for instanse when there is an exam.

As a student we get something called a student card, and when you show that card to the shops they often gives you a discount, the books are still expensive, but sometimes you get a book for $80 instead of $100 or something like that. Another option is to buy the books from students who already finished the education, and you can save a lot of money that way.