At college, one professor gave us a list of books we needed for class. All expensive, of course. Used copies were non-existent. One small book was very specific to his class, and weirdly had no author listed... unless you read the receipt. The author was the professor who recommended it. Self published too, and carried at the college bookstore. Total scam.

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zabzonk 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

One lecturer at a Polytechnic I worked for made his students buy his book. Well, a photocopy actually, done without payment from him by the Poly's Copy Services.

Other lecturers got "gifts" from publishers for requiring or at least recommending the publisher's books.

The amount of corruption in higher education is quite astonishing - you only have to look at the prices of required/recommended books compared with actual good, classics to realise this.

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davsti4 25 minutes ago | parent [-]

Is it corruption, or just an established business model for poorly paid educators to increase their revenues?

	▲	zabzonk 9 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		They were not so poorly paid - I was a senior analyst/programmer (and did some teaching), quite reasonably compensated, and the lecturers would get quite a bit more than me. But if you want to substitute "established business model" for "corruption", go ahead. I must say that not all of them were bad.
	▲	spogbiper 8 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Its both

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data-ottawa 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

When we had a book where only the homework problems changed in the new version we would pool together to buy one new copy and that person emailed out the homework questions.

The rest of us bought used books at the start of semester used book sale.

I think it worked best for everyone, I do wish I’d bought a few books new just for the longevity, but saving money was worth a lot more as a student.

	▲	II2II 2 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		When editions changed and problems were assigned from the books, most of the profs at my university would gladly provide copies of the updated questions. I even had a course where students would bring in photocopies of the prof's textbook to class, and he was still willing to pay a Knuth-esque stipend to students who found errors. I had one that was the exact opposite, even going as far as violating the university policy by charging for quizzes. The administration refused to do anything about that one ...
	▲	coldpie 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I just went into the university bookstore & took photos of the question pages, lol. This was in the digital camera era, pre-smartphones, so it was hard to hide what I was doing and I got kicked out once or twice. Worth it to save hundreds of dollars.

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ahoka 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Even better: optional book comes with a code you can use to register to an electronic version of the exam. Of course you can do it on pen and paper separate from most of the class if you don’t want to buy it…

	▲	literalAardvark 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		... but the pen and paper one is an essay instead of several multiple choice questions.

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rhubarbtree an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I attended what was a top CS uni at the time. Many of the definitive textbooks were written by our lecturers when it came to specialised classes - which isn’t very surprising really! I would say most of them were just genuinely recommended the top textbook in the field. Just happened to be theirs!

	▲	ludston an hour ago \| parent [-]
		I think it would be a huge advantage to be taught by the person that wrote the textbook in a particular field.

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fhdkweig 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Georgia Tech has/had its own publishing company. They actually encouraged their faculty to write books like this. I can't seem to find any information about it, but I swear it was there when I took classes in the late 1990s.

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jeromechoo 2 hours ago | parent [-]

BMED2013 and it was still the same in my years. The culture has shifted a bit amongst professors though. After sophomore level classes I remember that professors will often just email you their textbook if you asked (a lot of times they’ll offer to “work it out”with you if you can’t afford the textbook).

	▲	guiambros 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Plus now you get access to Safari books, and you also have their online library, so virtually any books you may need are accessible for free. (That's for the CS graduate program; not sure about others)

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chasd00 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

College textbooks have always been a scam. 30 years ago when I took calculus 1-3 they tried to make us buy the next edition of the same book each semester! Even I, country-come-to-town bumpkin at the time, saw through that and refused.

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dylan604 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This has been going on since at least my dad was in college in the 60s as he had a similar story

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Aboutplants 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I had a professor who wrote his classes “books” and sold them for $100 at the bookstore. There was a catch though, he also gave away the pdf of the books for free.

This allowed for scholarships that cover the cost of books (typically athletic scholarships) to foot the bill, him pocket the money, and anyone not on scholarship can freely download/print the pdf. I didn’t hate it.