Academic Computing Coordinating Council: Recommendation on Charging Students for Printing

AC4 Home | Meetings | 6/19/00 | Recommendation on Charging Students for Printing

Recommendation on Charging Students for Printing

To: Academic Computing Coordinating Council
From: AC4 Educational Technology Subcommittee

Information Technology presented a report on printing in the campus computer rooms. The report is located online at http://lm.ucdavis.edu/pubs/printing/. The amount of printing has risen over the years due to a variety of causes, but primarily the use of the World Wide Web for delivery of class materials. However, the paper recycling bins in the computer rooms are filled with discarded printouts, indicating waste. This report presents several options for reducing waste and cost containment.

The subcommittee agreed a system of charging students for printing is required to limit wasteful printing and control costs. Currently there is no incentive to reduce printing or control paper waste. Implementing a fee for printing would encourage more responsible printing, but the campus should not expect complete cost recovery. It was noted that once students have to pay for printing, they would encourage faculty to use less wasteful means for distribution of course material. One example is the use of copy services for distributing large documents. In addition, IT should develop tips/guidelines for faculty putting things on the web. This would also help reduce some of the wasteful printing.

The consensus was that there should be a number of free pages. The number of free pages should be set high enough so that it targets only those students who print excessively. Numbers considered were 150, 200, and 250 pages. The charges would be sent to the cashiers office at the end of the quarter so students would be billed quarterly.

There were three main charging options discussed. The number of free pages is set to 200 in the examples below. Since there is a administrative cost of billing, the minimum charge is five dollars.

There would be 100 free pages, and after that IT would charge $0.05 per page. However, if the student prints less that 100 additional pages we would cover the costs for them. So in effect the students would get 200 pages for free.
After a student has used all his/her 200 free pages, there would be a flat charge of $10, large enough to cover administrative costs associated with billing, PLUS an additional $0.05 charge per page.
The student would receive 200 free pages. We would then charge $5, which would allow the student to print an additional 100 pages. If the student uses those 100 pages, we would charge $5 for the next 100 and so on.

Examples of charges

Page count Option 1 Option 2 Option 3

Less than 200 $0 $0 $0

201-300 (#-100)*.05
so $5.05 - $10.00 $10 + (#-200)*.05
so $10.05 - $15.00 $5

301-400 (#-100)*.05
so $10.05 - $15.00 $10 + (#-200)*.05
so $15.05 - $20.00 $10

To ensure students can track their printing, IT would send out weekly email statements to students who have printed over a certain number of pages (perhaps 20-50) for the quarter and also allow students to use the web for checking how much they have printed. It is essential that there be a communication plan to make students aware of the new policy.

Implementing a student charge for printing would address the main issue of reducing wasteful printing, while providing some cost containment. We recommend that AC4 discuss this issue with representatives from IT, ASUCD, and other interested parties, and approve a policy in which IT will charge for printing as described above.

The AC4 Educational Technology Subcommittee is currently consulting with Mel Ramey on the Academic Senate's input, Bob Franks of Student Affairs on ASUCD involvement, and the Caishers office on the impact of the policy.