My school in the UW system is pretty good about texts. We simply check them out at the beginning of the semester and return them at the end. Just like a library (except for things like lab manuals, text supplements and novels). It's a pretty sweet deal. Even so, I find that I so rarely have a professor that teaches out of text, so it's not even worth waiting in line to check it out. I didn't pick up a text for any of my classes last semester and it didn't matter one bit. If there's some important sort of graph, chart, illustration, or whatever I'll just go to the actual library and photocopy it.
So I guess my suggestion is this:
Go over your classes and determine which ones will you actually use the text? If you don't know the prof. then ask someone who's had the class and see how he/she teaches. Are these 300+ level courses? Then class sizes should be smaller, hence less likeliness of text teaching. Are they intro courses with 300+ people? (Soc. 110 anyone?) You might want to get the text, but you may find out that the profs. simply email notes to every student after every lecture, to be as fair as they can (mine did).
P.S. I always hated text taught classes. They tend to be the most boring and most likely to be skipped simply 'cause I don't wanna get outta my warm bed in the winter.