Interesting. But then, I would say it's part of the teacher's job to prepare his slides and exams, he shouldn't charge the students because he didn't have time to do his job. If he wants some ease in his teaching preparation, fine, but he should be the one paying for it.
I mean, if the textbook has everything, the teacher could as well not even bother to come and teach the class, since the students already paid for everything.
In our high schools, exercise books are mandatory, but they are bought by the school and usually last more than 5 years (you don't keep them). Couldn't it be the case in US colleges, if teachers really want to rely on some textbook?
Also, to answer the other comment, making students pay for your own textbook is completely unethical, especially for academics who are supposed to hold to a minimum of work ethics. So, I'm surprised it's so widespread.
I know that I don't live in the US and that mentalities are different in every country, but here I see that teachers make students pay because they don't want to prepare their classes and because they receive royalties for every sold textbook.
Some professors in US colleges are focused on research and publishing. Their pay and whether or not they get tenure is based somewhat on the amount of research they have published and the amount of grants they have gotten.
So teaching isn't a high priority for some professors as teaching is time that you could have spent doing research.
Some classes are taught - at least in part - by TAs or graduate students. TAs also grade most of the homework. In my school at least, I think the professors graded the tests.
Now that I think about it the TAs might benefit the most from these pre-made slides and such.
The trend is to pay sub-minimum wage to part time college professors [1] and as a result these part time instructors are often busy hustling multiple teaching jobs in order to scrape by. They often aren't paid enough to afford to have decent office hours never mind write textbooks for a class they might never teach again. Maybe the colleges think that buying the package of books/workbooks/slides/etc will let them treat their part time instructors as interchangeable parts?
"What’s more, poor salary and benefits are the proverbial tip of the iceberg. Unhappy, underpaid, overworked, and sometimes under- or differently-qualified instructors provide less-than-ideal instruction. Contingent faculty are often staffed at the last minute, a circumstance that prevents them from properly preparing for the classes they teach. In order to make enough money to make ends meet, many teach at two or three universities, often taking on far more than four classes, which is a more-than-full load. NTTF often have little choice in the classes they teach, meaning they often teach outside their areas of specific expertise. Many are limited in their freedom to develop new curricula and are forced to follow syllabi that may be outdated, ill-conceived, or inferior. In short, the combination of lack of time to prepare, lack of freedom, a heavy workload, and commuting between two or more schools leaves these faculty members with little time to bring their best work to the classroom."
In our high schools, exercise books are mandatory, but they are bought by the school and usually last more than 5 years (you don't keep them). Couldn't it be the case in US colleges, if teachers really want to rely on some textbook?
Also, to answer the other comment, making students pay for your own textbook is completely unethical, especially for academics who are supposed to hold to a minimum of work ethics. So, I'm surprised it's so widespread.
I know that I don't live in the US and that mentalities are different in every country, but here I see that teachers make students pay because they don't want to prepare their classes and because they receive royalties for every sold textbook.