In an email sent out on Friday, Nov. 9, Assistant Vice President of Technology Jonathan Lewit addressed the issue of students overprinting on campus.
In his email, Lewit explained that the print quota system was implemented in order for students to be mindful about the amount of printing being used. He said the 400 pages or $40 given were considered a reasonable amount to use over the course of one semester, and that this is “enough to do your work and keep our overall expenses reasonable.”
However, a growing number of students are printing two or more times their quota, with some exceeding it exponentially, Lewit said. To remedy this situation, he said students will have to start paying for printing that exceeds the given amount per semester.
The email said each student will have their quota increased by $10, because the change occurred in the middle of a semester.
In addition, an area will be added to my.newpaltz.edu where students will be able to purchase additional pages. Students will also be able to purchase print quota cards in the Parking Office in the basement of the Student Union in $2, $5 or $10 increments.
According to the email, beginning in the spring semester, the quota system will be in place and everyone will have their start-up quota set to $50 — which includes the original $40 quota plus a $10 increment to pre-compensate people for inevitable printer errors. Because of the pre-compensation, there will be no refunds for printer or print job failures next semester.
“The reason to bump up the quota is that we are seeing a surprising number of times that people seem to have printing problems and request a credit,” Lewit said. “Rather than deal with lots of individual cases, we just bumped up everyone’s limit.”
In addition, Lewit reminded students that when you send a complicated PDF to a printer it may take a minute or so to print. Lewit said the printing problems on campus seem to be a combination of real printer issues and people who send long PDFs to printers and decide not to wait the minute or two it takes for them to print and then send it again.
First-year communication disorders major Kristin Rowe does not believe there should be a limit on how much students can print.
“College students have a lot of different essays they need to write,” Rowe said. “A limit on paper may restrict the amount and as a result, the quantity of their papers.”
In comparison, fourth-year math major Daniel Najjar believes the print quota on campus is a good idea because it keeps people from printing too much. Najjar said 500 pages are enough for a majority of students. However, people who take many classes and are required to print out excess amounts or to write a lot of essays should be given more pages, he said.
Lewit said most students print much fewer than 400 pages, while some print only a small amount more and others print a lot more.
“The print quota change just makes the ones who print a lot more actually pay for it, while the ones who print less are unchanged,” Lewit said