zlacker

There are tons of them already for sale cheaper, enough I don't think the overhead of running such a program would be justified: https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=ti+83

But there's concerted effort to keep the perceived value of used calculators from being too high from TI and their partners.

Things like peripherals that only work with new devices for lab work, to textbook examples that rely on color (which only newer ones have).

As soon as you go up a couple of levels in age you see the prices start to spike: https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=ti+nspire+cx

I say perceived value, because in reality the Ti-83 would still work for 99% of use cases, but TI has it's finger in the education pie, so it's easy for them to get textbooks to say things like "TI Nspire CX recommended" or have images and button presses that will only match their newest calculators

>>Booris+(OP)
In reality a $5 “scientific calculator” (or a slide rule) works for 99% of use cases (high school math homework/exams). The only thing I know of which strictly needs the TI calculator is the AP calculus test. Students should just borrow a calculator a few times to prepare and then for a few hours for this single test. Getting them to spend $100 each to keep the calculator is a total racket.

Better still would be to eliminate the need for a TI calculator from the AP exam, and then there would be no need for it whatsoever.