Universities in the US are doing this with course material now. I had to pay for a subscription service to access my assignments, so that my professors didn't have to review anything. I had to pay for the service to get credit for that portion of the class, and then all my work in that service vanished after the semester ended. No more access to the work I had done despite having classes the next semester that I would need that work to reference. The professor didn't pay a dime, and 100 students had to pay the cost so that the professor didn't have to review our work. Involuntary consumerism at its finest.
I started a petition, and tried arguing with the admins of the school to see if we could have these services banned or at least paid for by the professor.
They asked "How is this different than buying a book you need?" Answer is obvious, books don't disappear after the semester, they can be found in the library if you can't afford them, and they don't do the professors' job.
They asked "Well you can afford tuition, can't you afford the subscription?" No, I can't afford tuition, now you want more?
At the end of the day, I went back and forth with them, and they wouldn't budge. And I could tell it was really tearing their moral fabric, but no one in power wanted to budge because $$$$$
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