In France, the universities and engineering schools I know use polycopiés, which are teacher-made, paperback bound books (sometimes actual LaTeX-formatted text,

In France, the universities and engineering schools I know use polycopiés, which are teacher-made, paperback bound books (sometimes actual LaTeX-formatted text, sometimes just printed versions of course slides), given to students freely or priced according to their actual printing cost (in average, 200 pages long, ~5€). Granted, sometimes the quality is not as good as that of a rich textbook, but it is usually sufficient for the course. And much lighter to carry around as well. Besides, the university library contains a small amount of textbooks, which is usually sufficient for those few interested students which want to learn more.