The End of the Paywall Era? How the Open Access Movement Is Reshaping Scholarly Publishing in America
A sweeping shift in academic publishing policy is underway at universities and federal agencies across the United States, driven by growing pressure to make publicly funded research freely available to all. From Harvard's faculty mandate to the Biden-era NIH directive requiring immediate open access, institutions are fundamentally rethinking who gets to read — and who gets to profit from — scholarly knowledge. This article examines what that transformation means for students, researchers, and th