@deepthaw @thomasfuchs i can't speak for the us, but as a student in russia i do this too, a lot
but frankly it's less because i don't have enough materials (i don't need to buy my textbooks and whatnot), but because i can't force myself to spend mental energy on things ill ultimately never even need
eg i don't understand why i was forced to attend "Engineering standards and drawing" or why im attending "The linguistics of business language" as a computer science major xd
so it's more of a tool to get around local academic nonsense and spend more energy on the parts that matter than to save money or straight up cheat