Editorial : Newhouse printing costs discourage abuse, wastefulness

Students began paying for printing at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications for the first time this fall.

The new costs of printing — 2 cents per black and white page, 16 cents per color page — are meant to offset extraordinarily high costs to the school. Printing averaged 500,000 sheets per semester. Newhouse was the last place on the Syracuse University campus to offer free printing.

Hopefully, Newhouse’s decision will save more than money. Free printing clearly encouraged wastefulness judging by the pile up of recycled or forgotten paper surrounding the printers. The price will force students to pay attention to what they are printing and the number of copies.

The prices remain quite reduced from the university-wide prices — 4 cents per black and white page and 50 cents per color page. Many classes and departments in Newhouse require printed work, but little suggests they need it more than others. Social science classes require printing articles and essays. Law students must print long legal briefs. Natural sciences entail 20-page lab reports. The list continues.

Oftentimes, a lineup of students formed behind a student printing 20, maybe 50, pages of something entirely unrelated to their Newhouse work — event posters, apartment openings, meeting notices and the like. Student organizations with leaders in Newhouse clearly abused free printing, especially for the free color printing. The new charges will discourage this, which held up genuine academic work in the labs. It will force student organizations to foot the tab of massive printing at off-campus venues, as they should.