the high cost of education

So with my dissertation data coming in at a relatively fast past (inducing my jealousy from my fellow experimenters) I realized I had to figure out how to analyze it. Since my department doesn't like to teach methodology related to experimental research designs....I am left to do book learning. So I went to my dissertation committee (all very lovely people), and said how the hell am I supposed to do this. So I was sent off to buy a book, which apparently is a classic, Experimental Design: Procedures for Behavioral Sciences
by Roger E. Kirk (just in case anyone else needs an ANOVA bible).....

But I was somewhat shocked that it cost $175. But since I needed the book, and I have a research account (yeah I am a spoiled grad student) I shelled out the cash. Yet, I was left wondering if methodology book prices are driven by supply and demand, or if there is a conspiracy in which publishers are milking academia for every penny it is worth. Probably it is a supply and demand issue....but I am still annoyed by the high costs of my dissertation. When I started grad school, no one told me I would need a $7,500 grant to do my dissertation....but thank goodness for the NSF....they make my life so much easier, despite all of the paperwork.