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Given over a decade of experience as a university tutor (to use the UK term for instructor), I second jgrays comments. I also hope that the soon-to-be-available Pixel Qi can address these screen needs. In addition - and also repeated from other threads - university and college courses tend to use some form of online course management system to deliver class materials (such as moodle) to enable electronic interaction within the class (forums or wikis), and for assignment uploading. This system is central to following the class and must also be available on the same platform that the student would also be carrying around to read/annotate textbooks.
I don't see how current "ereaders" can provide these functions given the refresh rate limitations of eink (never mind color). But netbooks do provide this and more, at the same price point or even less. Once the screen improves for reading (Pixel Qi) and the battery life goes to 6-8 hours - a typical school day - the netbook platform will be ideal for e-textbooks. One more comment: Prices of e-texts have to come down considering that the student cannot "resell" the text or purchase a used copy.
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