Illustration by Stephanie Stober

Students will now have to pay for each page printed from on-campus computer labs, following changes to the College’s PrintSense program beginning in the Fall 2010 semester.

While PrintSense previously allowed each student to print 600 pages per semester, printing will now cost 5 cents per one-sided page and 10 cents per double-sided page.

The old system gave each student an account of $30 to print at 5 cents per page, and any pages over the limit of 600 were charged to the student.

“In the past the 600 pages per semester were essentially paid from our revenue from state appropriations and student tuition,” Nadine Stern, vice president for information technology and enrollment services, said in an e-mail.

“We did not identify the cost for this separately and the College paid for all the printing out of the general College Operating budget.”

The “severe cuts to state appropriation,” Stern said, made it necessary for the College to come up with methods of keeping tuition from rising.

“We’ve found that the average student prints about 300 pages per semester, so there will be an added cost to the average student of about $15 per semester,” Matt Golden, executive director of public relations and communication, said in an e-mail.

The exact cost to each student, however, will depend on his or her printing choices.

“We are hopeful that the new policies encourage responsible printing campus-wide,” Golden said. The PrintSense website (tcnj.edu/~printing) allows students to track spending and offers tips for keeping printing to a minimum, such as changing the margins and using both sides of the paper.

Students will receive the PrintSense charges on their bill at the end of the semester. Golden encouraged students to “monitor their print usage so that there are no surprises” when they are charged.

Of course, another major part of this research was the review of the printing on campus in the past, said Golden. The cost of printing for 2008 was $70,000, though the budgeted amount had been $36,000.

Environmental concerns were a crucial factor as well. The work of the President’s Climate Commitment Committee also influenced the changes to PrintSense, Golden said.

“The decision to make these changes to PrintSense was not taken lightly,” said Golden, adding that “in our current fiscal climate, we are evaluating and recommending cost-saving measures in many areas so that we will be able to sustain the critical services for the College.”

According to Golden, the changes to PrintSense were recommended by the Office of Academic Affairs and Information Technology’s business office.

The latter conducted “extensive research” last year, Golden said, which included surveys of faculty of the College “to identify student printing requirements as part of their coursework” and of other New Jersey and Pennsylvania colleges and universities.