alt Hacker NewsAt 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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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.
The only undergraduate class I had to repeat (because I failed its outdated-ness) was a 1hour lab for physical chemistry, which was taught by a geriatric whom still expected us to use decades-outdated "scientific software" [still DOS prompts, in mid-2000s?!?!] to perform calculations in support of since-disproven theories (mostly: his).
His class had a similar $$self$-$published$$ "book" [a packet of stapled 10lb paper] which hadn't been updated since his thesis, some sixty years earlier (literally 80+, now). Required turn-ins carried serialized imprints!
RIP when he died that summer and next year I retook the same class, with much more ease / better instruction.
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Dr. Shithead's wife was actually responsible for my entire scholarship, sweet-as-pie, and we'd often joke about her husband's "reputation" – he's so gentle with me, but I know who he is.
Both are longdead, now – thanks Drs. T-s!
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…
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.
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!
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.
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.
This has been going on since at least my dad was in college in the 60s as he had a similar story
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.