The knowledge aristocracy | Stanford Daily, by Andraka, J.

"From curing diseases with robots composed of only a few hundred atoms to looking back 13 billion years at galaxies that are light years away, science has the potential to revolutionize how we view and interact with our world.

Unfortunately, barriers created by slashed government research budgets and ill-informed legislation stand in the way of such marvels. By the far the most insurmountable barrier toward scientific progress is scientific paywalls, user fees where the reader of a journal article must pay 35 dollars to read the article, which are nearly unavoidable since 90 percent of all journals are locked tightly behind them.

These fees greatly increase the cost of doing scientific research, exacerbating recent research funding cuts, while also creating a tier-based model for the dissemination of scientific knowledge."

For this full article discussing the need for OA, the economic disparity between the cost of education and the cost of entertainment, paywalls, and the need for the public to be able to access information at an economic value point that is reachable for all, regardless of  economic class and take home pay, read Jack Andraka's article.