Millions are spent by universities to subsidize their own academic presses.

The John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy reports.

Stop the Presses! Or, At Least, Stop Their Subsidies!

Many universities, public and private, have an affiliated press. Examples include Harvard University Press, University of Michigan Press, Duke University Press, and, the focus of this article, University of North Carolina Press.

University presses exist to publish scholarly books and journals that might not be published by a for-profit publishing house due to the small market for most academic books. Therefore, they require subsidies from willing donors and/or presumably less willing taxpayers and students.

For the 2014-15 fiscal year, UNC Press had expenses of $4.78 million, revenues of $3.47 million, and an operating deficit of $1.3 million. That deficit was in part offset by $725,000 from its $17.3 million endowment (which is separate from the university’s endowment). Therefore, sales revenues from books and journals, plus the funds from the endowment covered nearly 90 percent of the costs of running UNC Press.