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.
But if you want to substitute "established business model" for "corruption", go ahead. I must say that not all of them were bad.
Roughly half the textbooks required were published by UNISA press, with authors being the lecturers themselves. With one exception (Delphi programming), all the books published by UNISA press were free with the course.
It's astounding that +3 decades later, it is still not profitable for any other university to do this!
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!
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.
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 ...
(That's for the CS graduate program; not sure about others)
Most professors didn't mind how you got the material. But one of them... geez, every year he changed the content slightly and if you didn't have the latest one, he would write the test so that you would barely pass. The irony is that his lectures were really good and engaging but he really was a shitty person.
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.