Why doesn't students pull their funds for 1 book and then scan it and use that electronic copy? (and may be return/resell the physical book)?
That's not a bad plan from a cost perspective, though scanning a 200+ page textbook is reasonably complex, and very time consuming.
it's doable cuz most unis have nice scanning equipment u can use for free in the library. i have literally made over $1000 in a semester scanning a textbook nobody had PDFed and reselling it electronically. it wasn't even offered in digital format by the publisher.