The publishers by themselves can't create a monopoly in textbooks. They need the universities and colleges to force their students to buy the textbooks. To do that, they provide kickbacks to the schools as incentive. The publishers and schools together create the monopoly and reap the profits from the inflated textbook prices. Some professors may not like it, but their hands are forced by the administration.
To go the route of open, cheap textbooks for their students, the schools need to be willing to forego the cash they get from the expensive textbooks. In an age of schools as cash cows for ever expanding bureaucracies, that seems to be an unpopular choice.
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