People think universities are founts of free information, that they're research is distributed to all interested characters? Doesn't happen. Think paying $40 for an entire astronomical book is a lot? How about $50 for a 10 page paper on the subject? Imagine if you were a researcher who had to, to further their research, purchase 50-100 such papers a year? Even with a discount? Some of the papers produced are from privately-funded institutions, but some aren't.

https://www.theguardian.com/higher-e...nals-expensive