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Yes. Most textbooks retail in the ~$200 range. I remember that I had one class in college that had such a long list of recommended textbooks (on top of two required texts) that buying all the course materials would cost $3000 retail, and this was 10 years ago.

Pearson make great money charging obscene amounts for books. In many subjects they'll have some online component so if you thought you could get away with using a second hand copy of last year's edition they'll make you have to pay for the online access section separately regardless.

Considering these courses included assigned reading, and that total would include multiple novels, yes, that is cheap.