Printing fees debut at Luther with new software, regulations

A new system designed to regulate printing and reduce paper waste has been instituted at Luther and is now serving students’ printing needs across campus.

According to Luther Information Services, the new system, called GoPrint, will help Luther achieve its sustainability goals by cutting costs and paper waste.

“We’ll be able to track printing and charge the appropriate people rather than spreading it out amongst the entire population,” Matt Hughes, LIS Helpdesk manager, said. “We’ll be able to reduce paper usage and make people more aware. That goes a long way towards Luther’s goal of sustainability.”

Students will be allotted $20 worth of pages to print each semester, with each page costing five cents. The $20 fee is built into the technology fee students pay each year. For J-term and summer sessions, students will get $5, worth 100 pages. If those allotments aren’t used, however, there will be no refund, and any remaining funds are rolled back into paying for other technology services.

Despite the seeming suddenness of the change, LIS has been considering print accounting systems for a number of years. LIS consulted many campuses that use GoPrint prior to the switch. The new system was also tested for a year before being implemented campus-wide.

According to LIS, Luther currently spends around $60,000 per year on paper and toner in the labs alone. Some schools using the GoPrint system have reported up to a 75 percent reduction in waste.

Currently, only individual accounts are regulated by GoPrint, but soon all academic and administrative departments and student organizations will be covered as well.

Despite the adjustment process and an added expense, students have generally admitted the switch has its benefits.

“It adds so much more stress to a student’s life, as if we don’t have enough already,” Jake Kessler (‘12) said. “But I am willing to cooperate with the new system for the sake of the environment.”

The change has been greeted with hesitation and uncertainty by many students, but in pace with changes across Luther, the new system may be the smallest innovation with which students are confronted.