I agree "curating" is a useful service, and do love to peruse university bookstores for current course texts. But it seems at lower tier schools, they often won't use the "best" books. Perhaps they choose one that is more approachable for their student body, or often a professor has written their own text (and collects royalties). Fortunately, the best books become known online through recommendations and best-of lists. For instance,

https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/compilers

Another point is that no single book will cover everything in the best way, and there are benefits to reading multiple authors' take on a concept (syntopical reading):

https://fs.blog/how-to-read-a-book/

Great point on universities and professors making their courses/materials publicly available.

Can you help me understand what you mean by curating?

If I take a subject, for a particular class, there's likely only a fixed outline of concepts and ultimately words to describe it, packaged up in one ore more textbooks all presenting their wording.

Since Open Educational Resources are very much an established thing by professional textbook authors.

Self-directed learning is the only skill that builds the ability to learn how to learn.

The premise of this post is what value a physical campus provides. In some ways, I think that will have to evolve because there are no shortage of academics that love building and dedicating buildings, similar to the odd hobby of politicians who love statues.