USG seals deal for free Wall Street Journal subscriptions
Ohio State students, faculty and staff are eligible for new benefit
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Adam Eskender Ohio State News contributor |
The Ohio State University Undergraduate Student Government has partnered with the Wall Street Journal to provide free subscriptions for students, staff and faculty.
Hayden Price, a third-year biomedical science major, is the senior initiatives counselor for USG and helped lead the effort to secure the deal.
After establishing a successful subscription partnership with the New York Times in 2022, USG worked to get free Wall Street Journal subscriptions after hearing student feedback.
“Specifically, business majors who were using the Wall Street Journal for classes, and they were paying for their own subscriptions,” he said. “Student memberships can get pretty expensive.”
Bobby McAlpine, a fourth-year city and regional planning and political science major, is president of USG and said with free subscriptions, students will be more aware of the daily news.
“We believe that this feeds directly into our university motto: Education for Citizenship. We want students to have the resources to not only be educated, but to be informed educated citizens who will one day represent Ohio State University to the world.”
USG collaborated with the university’s ADA Coordinator’s Office, the Office of Technology and Digital Innovation and the Office of Student Life to make sure that the initiative would work with Ohio State’s standards and allow the subscription to be accessible to the campus community.
“We got into contact with some of their marketing people. We did some back and forth there and then,” Price said. “We did a lot of work with [the ADA Coordinator's Office] and also the Wall Street Journal’s digital accessibility team to make sure that everything was good to go.”
Price said USG hopes to obtain additional free newspaper subscriptions for the Ohio State community’s use in the future.
“There are a couple of other publications, potentially some local ones, that we are exploring.”
Price said USG is now working to raise awareness about the free subscriptions.
“First, we’re just making sure that everybody is aware of it. We’re trying to get people to sign up so that they can use it for their own personal use. But then, moving forward, the Wall Street Journal has university resources that professors can use to potentially integrate into the classroom,” he said.
Price said USG plays an important role in supporting student life. The free subscriptions are just one example.
“I think it’s a testament to [USG], and their ability to speak for the student body and get the student body something that they want,” he said.
McAlpine said the goal with free subscription projects is to remove the cost barrier that causes a gap for students when it comes to being informed about the news.
“These past two years in the Undergraduate Student Government, we have been working to bridge the gap and anchor everything we do in helping students. … We are so excited to see how this can help our Buckeye community be the best it can be.”
Students, faculty and staff can use their @osu.edu or @buckeyemail.osu.edu email address to sign up for a New York Times subscription at accessnyt.com and a Wall Street Journal subscription at WSJ.com/OhioState.
