In school, I had to buy an organic chemistry set (separatory funnels, condensers, round flasks, etc.), and then sell it back to the campus bookstore at the end of the semester. Too many people broke pieces that the school was losing money on just doing rentals or having a deposit. The amount of money I got back at the end of the year was really small, though, compared with the worth of the set. Like with textbooks, I guess they just assumed no one would want it afterwards, so they’d give it up for cheap.
To this day, I still regret selling all that equipment back.