It always annoyed me that I'm paying thousands of dollars for tuition, only to be forced to pay additional thousands for the university-specific version of a textbook.

I took a summer course on differential equations at Valencia Community College in Orlando in 2010. It's a perfectly fine school and it was a fun course (I really liked the professor), but what really annoyed me was that it required a $150 textbook on differential equations, and very specifically the "Valencia Edition" of it. What was even more annoying, the "non-Valencia" edition of the book was on Amazon, new and hardcover, for $26. Oh, also, the Valencia edition didn't even have a cover; it was pre-hole-punched and I was expected to put it into a binder.

Valencia might be a fine school but as far as I'm aware they're not doing cutting edge research into differential equations, and even if they were I doubt that those changes would materialize in an introductory course, so it really annoyed me that they were charging a $125 premium specifically because it would have different practice problems.

Now, in this particular story there was a happy workaround. I approached the professor after class and explained the situation to him. He said "oh dude, the homework is actually optional in this class anyway, your grade is just the tests. Just buy the cheaper book and come to me after class and I'll see if the practice problems align with what I wanted you to study." I returned the Valencia edition (which hadn't been opened) and ordered the Amazon book, and I got an A in the course.

I think it should be like in high school. You borrow the book for the semester and return it, and you only pay for the book if you damage it.

ETA:

I should point out, this is actually something I really respected about Western Governors University almost immediately. The books are digital, but they are included in the tuition.