One of my biggest disappointments with University so far is that the textbooks we are forced to buy really are not that useful. Not to mention they are outrageously expensive. I can use a computer textbook in one class for example, but probably not any others. And the chances of me using it outside of school are rather slim, considering the content gets updates so frequently. But I guess things are not as bad as they could be as Larry Borsato notes:
For the past several months, McGraw-Hill Ryerson Ltd., one of the country’s largest publishers of university textbooks, has been quietly trying to coax companies into buying advertising space in their texts.
“Reach a hard to get target group where they spend all their parents’ money,” says a McGraw-Hill brochure touting its planned ads. “Do you really think 18-24 year olds see those on-campus magazine ads? Do you really think they could miss an ad that is placed in a very well-respected textbook?”
Considering I avoid assigned readings like the plague, I for one wouldn’t be seeing the ads. Seriously though, I don’t think advertisements have any place in a textbook. And as soon as the ads make it into the books, the flood gates are open. Consider a business textbook that features advertising by a company like McDonalds. What are the chances that the publishing company will use an example of McDonalds’ business in their textbook that doesn’t make the fast food chain look good? Especially if the publishing companies come to rely on ad dollars.
Everything about the idea spells bad news to me. Larry says that “if they want to give the textbooks to students for free then that’s fine. But there’s no way that I’m paying $100 for a textbook full of ads, especially one the school forces me to buy.” I agree for the most part, I’d put up with advertising in order to get the books for free, but I don’t think the integrity of a textbook can be protected when money starts exchanging hands for page space.
So on the off chance that I actually choose to read my textbook, I’d rather know that what I am reading is there because the author thought it was important, not because advertising dollars paid for it to be written.
Read: Toronto Star
MasterMaq's Blog 
I think that the entire idea is bunk. I mean, if publishers want to advertise in a textbook, they can put an insert in that will be promptly thrown out. I would unequivocally refuse to purchase a textbook that had advertising in it, because I think that at any school, we are inundated with enough ads to write an entire book about (minus the course material).
I think this scenario points to a general dumbing down of the population, as Mack has so eloquently stated here: So on the off chance that I actually choose to read my textbook, I’d rather know that what I am reading is there because the author thought it was important, not because advertising dollars paid for it to be written.
If this were the case (that advertisers mandated what was to be said), students would not be getting a clear picture of what the subject/course was trying to get at, and we’d be subjected to our professors actually having to teach us the material. Hey now….that might not be such a bad thing…
Ads in TEXTBOOKS?! That’s just beyond bad taste, really. I agree…why should I pay the textbooks if there are ads? Mind you, the only advantage I can see is that you get to read something else other than textbook rhetoric. But more ads means more paper/ink…and that means…oh, our poor trees! *SOB* No, if you are in the Sciences/Computers, etc….textbooks are already freaking thick…unless all the ads are printed at the end where you can rip them off, you’ll just end up breaking your shoulders even quicker 😉 Yay, publishers!