The amount that Nature, one of the premier science publications, receives in revenue is more than the cost of publishing it. They have dozens of offices and more than 800 staff around the world. They also publish more than 150 other, much less profitable (or even not profitable) academic journals.

If you think that is representative of academic publishing in general, than I suggest you look a bit more closely. Having generally accepted academic journals is a societal benefit. If the schools wanted to publish these papers, like they do in other disciplines, that could be an alternative. However, as long there is no viable alternative, then someone has to pay to collate this information and make it generally accessible.