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Letter to the Editor: Printing quotas are not the right choice

By Letter to the Editor on July 14, 2010 4:15 am in Letters / 3 comments

 

Our school’s new implementation of the new inconvenient printing quotas are comical-grinning and absurdity being the teeth in this photo.

We rack-up thousands upon thousands of dollars in student loans to cover tuition; ha, don’t even get me started on the ridiculous coin students across this country submissively push across the table to be oh-so-lucky to receive that thin paper diploma.

So, instead of huffing and puffing about college credit costs, let us tackle a more “local” problem, eh?

How does this university justify putting some sort of iron fist on the amount of Microsoft Word documents students can print off?

I just don’t get it. I’m not allowed to print more than “ten dollars” worth of paper — but you enjoy your $400,000 salary, George Ross.

It is important for the student body to voice their opinion on issues, especially one that directly hits us with a blow.

We all need to stop being such apathetic observers and let the university know our frustrations.

So how about it George-o pal, what do you say ol’ sport?

- Jack Buck

Grand Rapids senior

 

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  • Jeremy

    It's not about $10 per person. People waste paper because they don't pa for it directly… This leads to insane mounts of waste. We often don't think about the resources we use, and the amounts, unless we have to pay for it. This is why when you go to apartments complex where your utilities are included in the rent, the people living there will run the heater/ac on full blast without the windows open. Once they start seeing the bill and paying for it themselves, then they close the windows.

    So about the paper—not having a quota just lets people think they can print anything and everything with no purpose. Multiply that amount of paper for each person who does it throughout the entire campus, and then add up every university/office across the entire country. 50% of it or more is probably crap that didn't need to be printed off.

    If you're upset about having paper quotas, good luck on how you deal with the future which is going to entail a great deal of rationing and quotas. It's the only way to have a planet with 6 billion + people.

    Therefore, get over it and think of the big picture and that you may not be able to print full slide powerpoint presentations with black backgrounds. You should look up how expensive laser printer ink is.

  • Chip Senior

    I find this fustrating as well. Many of my professors over the past three years have posted things onto blackboard that are pages long of lecture notes that we need to bring to class to add on to or “fill in the blanks”, etc. A printing quota will definately hinder my ability to be able to print off these required pages for lectures. By the way, I only printed off what I was required to, so I'm not someone just rambling because I can't print off a book on a school printer. However the limit given multiplied by 4 or 5 classes who have 3-5 pages of lecture notes or reading articles that need to be brought to class for me to print off 3 times a week, that's at least near 500 pages…not allowed by the quota, yet required for classes.

  • TG

    I can understand the frustration of feeling like every single aspect of your education has a fee tied to it. I am a CMU grad myself, I remember it well. However, I do think that the print quotas are necessary. There is unbelievable waste in printing costs, and I don't think students quite grasp that their printing activities aren't funded by a singular limitless pool of money. Those costs were previously paid for by individual departments or colleges, and in times like these, no department can afford to have a giant ?? in their budget. Furthermore, prior to this University wide quota system, there were “pockets” of quota systems and pay-for-print systems popping up throughout the University. What was the consequence of that? Well, students migrated their printing to the areas that had no such printing quota in place! That's called “cost shifting”, and it can have a serious effect on individual budgets. So rather than face the inevitable piecemeal system of different quotas here and there (and a duplication of expenses as individual areas each purchased a different print management system) the University made a wise decision in creating a University level system. It's better for students to have a single system too, trust me. Other institutions have them in place, this is not something unique to CMU.

    The quota of 250 free pages per semester for undergrads may or may not be at the perfect level, that's certainly debatable. However, in the announcements that I've read about the system, there seem to be indications that that number will be reviewed and revised.

    What a quota of 250 pages does accomplish though is a change in thinking. And that's exactly what is needed to keep printing costs under control. Students will now stop and think, “Do I need to print this article out or can I just save it to my U: drive or my “Briefcase” in the new email system?” The University has provided a several alternatives to students to printing. You can save documents and view them from literally anywhere you can get an internet connection!

    Over time, it will change faculty's thinking too. Believe it or not, they do care about your well being, and as educated individuals themselves, they can sympathize with someone going through those “penny-less” student years. They are likely to think, “Do I really need all of the students to print out their rough drafts right now or can I accept them on Blackboard?”

    As others have mentioned, this change in behavior and thinking about printing will NEVER happen without a quota. Printing is absolutely necessary in some situations; I won't debate that. But there are plenty of alternatives (and there have been for years) to printing out every piece of material that one creates or encounters in an academic career.