> Professor here: this part isn't correct in my experience: > > Professors are offered substantial bribes to select the most expensive texts > I've never hear

> Professor here: this part isn't correct in my experience: > > Professors are offered substantial bribes to select the most expensive texts > I've never heard of this happening, and certainly have never been offered a kickback myself to take a book. Accepting one would be a crime for state university professors where I am, and probably almost everywhere else. As also a professor, I have certainly never encountered outright bribes, nor anything that I'd call 'substantial', but certainly book reps take every opportunity that they can get to drop off small gifts—small enough that it feels overly fastidious to complain about it—carefully not advertised as inducements to use their products. (However, there is certainly no shortage of outrage over things professors are imagined to do. My university's student newspaper ran an outraged article a while back on the fortune that professors make by selling off evaluation copies of textbooks. At least in my field, the worst that is done is to give away for free the evaluation copies to pestilential resellers to get them (copies and resellers) out of our offices; but I think it is becoming more common to turn away such resellers.)