> Elsevier is publicly traded with a market cap of about 10 billion USD.
> A controlling stake in it could be acquired for around 5 billion. Here is a guide
> of the largest university endowments

> http://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/2011/06/28/10-
> universities-with-largest-financial-endowments

> If universities are so unhappy with the costs, and Elsevier is making so much
> money, perhaps they should just form a consortium and buy it.

> On Apr 26, 2:37 pm, Jeffrey Spies <jsp...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > A colleague sent this to me earlier:

> > http://techland.time.com/2012/04/26/if-harvard-cant-afford-academic-j...

> > The memo includes:

> > Even though scholarly output continues to grow and publishing can be

> > > expensive, profit margins of 35% and more suggest that the prices we
> > > must pay do not solely result from an increasing supply of new
> > > articles . The Faculty Advisory Council to the Library, representing
> > > university faculty in all schools and in consultation with the
> > > Harvard Library leadership, reached this conclusion: major
> > > periodical subscriptions, especially to electronic journals
> > > published by historically key providers, cannot be
> > > sustained: continuing these subscriptions on their current footing
> > > is financially untenable.

> > and

> > Consider submitting articles to open-access journals, or to ones that
> > have

> > > reasonable, sustainable subscription costs; move prestige to open access.

> > That's a big move in the right direction!