As of April 28, my printing budget was at $4.26, which means I have printed out 3,122 pages so far this year alone.
While this may seem like it would be enough, during the first five weeks of winter term I spent $12.42, which means I printed out approximately 1,500 pages during winter term alone, and I am just one student. This quantity of printing is grossly unnecessary for the environment and the college.
According to Augustana’s website, each student receives $50 for printing included in their tuition, and it’s $0.02 on each side to print in Black and White and $0.06 to print in color on each side. Students can add to their printing budgets for $5, meaning they can add 250 pages if they just print in black and white, and 84 pages if they print solely in color.
The fact is that this problem can be avoided easily. We have the technological means to avoid this problem, but we are not using it.
During winter term in my four classes, three of them have strict no electronics policies, ranging from they must be inside your bag and/or stowed away, to they are not allowed to be present, otherwise the student “will be asked to leave for the day.” During spring term, I am again expected to come with printed articles in two of my four classes.
When I came to Augustana on admissions visits, I remember being told that we were allotted so much money for printing there was no way we could run out, but now I am finding myself having to worrying about adding to my printing budget.
At the start of this year, the college also cut our printing budget in half, bringing us from $100 to $50. If Augustana is going to cut everyone’s individual budget in half, then we should also have some alternatives so that printing is not another cost we have to pay for.
There is no doubt that technology can be a distracting temptation, but as someone who paying thousands of dollars to attend this school, I would hope students would be able to rise above the temptation to focus in a class they are paying hundreds of dollars a session for.
That being said, we are all adults.
If a student wants to waste their time going on Facebook, I say that’s their problem, but for the students who come to learn and would like to have alternatives to printing out thirty page documents for every session, I think we deserve some leeway.