Students can't access research essential to their education.

Over the past 20 years, the price of subscriptions to scholarly journals has increased over 260%, and even before the current recession, library budgets could not keep up with the staggering increase in journal prices. Journal prices continue to increase rapidly, yet libraries are lucky to see their budgets remain the same and many face sharp cutbacks due to weak economic conditions.

While some publishers continue to make 30% to 40% profit margins, students on campuses across the country are in danger of losing access to journals that provide them with cutting edge research – research crucial for a complete education in any field of study. Over the past year, the situation has become so serious that it has led a major university provost to call the acquisition of scholarly journals "one of the most daunting challenges that research universities face."

This unsustainable system must change. Students deserve the best possible education and should not be artificially constrained by the selection of scholarly journals their campus is able to provide.

Read more about students' declining access to research

A History of Declining Access: How We Got Here

We have a right to this research – We paid for it.

Perhaps the most frustrating aspect of the current academic publishing system is that we do not get access to all of the over $60 billion of research that we, as students and taxpayers, pay for every year:

Not only do we pay the salaries of the professors who do the research, perform peer review, and serve as editors – all of which they provide to journals at no cost... but we also, through our tax dollars, fund agencies like the NIH, which alone spends nearly $30 billion per year on research grants. Collectively, federal agencies underwrite the majority of research published in academic journals.

After this research is completed and submitted for publication, we then have to turn around and buy back this research from the publishers through subscriptions to journals, many of which individually cost thousands to tens of thousands of dollars per year.

When we pay for research to be conducted, we have a right to the results of that research, especially when making these resources publicly available can have a positive impact for students, patients, doctors, researchers, small businesses, and many other consumers of information.

Read more about how opening access will benefit students, patients, and many others

Read more about journals, the cost of education, and the value we (don't) get for our money

It's time to do something about it...

Individual students, student governments, and student organizations, both American and international, are beginning to call for Open Access.

Open Access is free, unrestricted access to high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship over the Internet.

The recently released Student Statement on the Right to Research calls on students, researchers, universities, and governments to open access to scholarly information. The current signatories represent over half a million students from the United States, Canada, and around the world, and this number continues to grow everyday.

Join us in fighting for students’ right to research – it’s an exciting time as we begin to see lots of movement toward our goal, both legislatively, with the reintroduction of the Federal Research Public Access Act (FRPAA) that would require all federally funded research be made openly available to the public for free, online access, and on campus, as dozens of colleges and universities adopt open-access mandates that reserve the author’s right to post his or her work in an Open Access repository.

Continue to our action page to see a complete run down of how Open Access is becoming a reality and the crucial role you can play both on your campus and at the national level.

Media coverage of students in Open Access

If you have any questions about what you can do or how to get started, contact SPARC’s Student Outreach Fellow!