Here is my eloquent opinion on this subject: fuck NYU.

WHAT!?! Can TBNYU! add this to the top of their list? Can I bet that the next NYU location they are going to occupy is a computer lab?

Protecting the environment my ass….these are documents we have to print out for classes!! long stupid ass readings professors make us bring to class. As if we’re not paying enough to be here now we have to pay for this?? BULLSHIT

It’d be interesting if someone did a study to find out if this new printing program actually saves the university money. I for one can say that I never, ever used the free printing my first two years here, and if NYU gives everyone a $50 credit for printing, I am left wondering how many people are actually like me and most likely won’t use it.

Moreover, I’d like to know how many pages individual students actually printed in the past to make NYU set a 500 page maximum for each person.

@phil- the credit ITS-specific and doesn’t roll over semester to semester, so they definitely don’t lose money, even if you don’t use it. As for averages, previously you swiped into the lab but didn’t actually record what was printed, so a vaguely accurate student average isn’t very realistic. we’ll look into whether or not they have an estimate of total pages printed last year though.

Can’t wait for the WSN exposé on this subject in three days.

@Lily “the credit ITS-specific and doesn’t roll over semester to semester, so they definitely don’t lose money, even if you don’t use it.”

This is exactly what I was I was trying to say but I guess it didn’t come across that way. What I meant was there are students like me who never use to labs and most likely never will, so NYU saves it’s $100 a year from my printing while they get to limit the people who use the free printing all the time to that $100 free limit. Again it all comes down to whether or not the people using all the free printing would print some exorbitant amount ($500?) of pages each semester/year.

If you think about it, it’s actually a really smart move on NYU’s part to save money, even if it is a pretty harsh move against the students at NYU who did all of the printing.

Also, 3rd North is no longer open 24/7.

http://www.nyu.edu/its/labs/third/

I went to the Third North lab today. The process actually isn’t as horrible as it sounds/I thought it would be when my reading didn’t print from “East Room 3″. It actually makes it easier because you don’t have to sit there with three people looking over your shoulder checking to see if your document prints because it doesn’t print until you swipe your NYU ID. The worst part is that it won’t print double-sided pages, which is mostly the reason I went to the printing labs in the first place.

Also, I doubt anyone with a normal (read: tons of fucking reading) course load will actually surpass 500 pages per semester, but I’ll let you know in December since I print everything out at the labs.

@Phillip Klugman – I was in the printing lab last spring when some dramatic writing kid printed 25 copies of his 40+ page screenplay, so… there you have it. Unfortunately nobody hit him in the face.

Well, considering that there were students who’d print entire scripts from three different printers, this seems like a smart move on NYU’s part.

Besides, if anything, it’ll teach us (me) how to budget (not waste paper). Now I won’t print out that 40 page reading because it’s not like I’d read it anyway. No more printing out readings just to feel better about myself.

@ Henry: I’m with you. This changes the incentives so that people will run off copies instead of printing 25 copies of stuff.

And as people have already mentioned, this will only affect a small number of students who abuse the printing privileges.

I work in an office. So do many of you, I believe! It’s a great place to print for free, especially at the end of the day when your bosses really don’t give a shit.

I’m more upset about Third North not being open 24/7 than I am about the new printing policy. Now what am I supposed to do when I finish a paper at 3 am and my printer runs out of ink?

Can the $50 worth of credit go toward printing in Bobst? just hopeful thinking…

@Josh That’s where I do all my printing. I didn’t even know about the ITS credit until this post.

I’m not positive, and I’m also in Paris, but I heard that NYU has made cutbacks in a couple other places in order to make all internships (even those outside of NYU) paid instead of for credit, and that by limiting the free printing and changing printing center hours, they will have the funds to pay students for this new policy. I’m assuming it’s not in effect yet if NYULocal hasn’t made a report on it. Heard this from an RA, he said it “looking that way” but unsure of when it would actually be put into place.

@Brianne- you may be thinking of last year’s Steinhardt senior class gift to a fund that would offer certain NYU students a stipend or interning. We’ve not heard anything about the University potentially paying students for off-campus internships and, sadly, that seems incredibly unlikely. I mean, I’d be happy if they just stopped charging more than 1,100 a credit for me to work for free for someone else.

This recession has officially hit close to home.

This literally ruined my first day of class.

I agree with this… You’ll think twice about printing that 40 page pdf your supposed to read for class if it costs you $4.00 … instead trying reading it on your laptop and bringing your laptop to class… and if you end up spending $50 a semester on printing perhaps its time to buy a printer…since some sell for real cheap and I’ve had mine since I was a Sophomore in H.S. (I’m not a junior in college)…and if you’re really so afraid of running out of money perhaps you should not get that extra cup of starbucks Coffee that you always gets when your already ten minutes late for class…

As a politics major, all of my upper level courses have relied extensively on online material that needs to be printed. Using my laptop to read the articles is just not an option, as any good student who actively reads the material should know.

Anyways, I’ve always been a major customer of the Steinhardt and Third North Free printing labs and it has been clear since I first started using them that major waste was going on. However, I don’t think limiting students (like me) to $50 per semester of free printing is fair when my courses require me to print out more than 500 pages of material.

There are better ways to avoid the waste going on at the free printing labs.

- Forcing people to print double-sided unless a supervisor provides an override key
- Using this same swipe-system would work well to force people to authorize the print-job at only one printer, and not every single one in the room

There were a lot of people who were extremely wasteful at the printing labs. There were also a lot of people there who spent the extra time to make sure they weren’t being wasteful. NYU is punishing everyone when they should (and could have) just punished the former group.

I’d also like to add that I realize most universities probably don’t provide free printing for their students like NYU has for its students. I’m certainly grateful that NYU provides a service I think most universities should, but I don’t think limiting each student to only $50 dollars per semester is the correct way to allocate those generously provided resources (that we pay 52,000/year for…).

Many students don’t use the free printing labs, or won’t ever use their entire $50 dollars worth. Nor does it actually cost NYU 10 cents per page to allow us to print.

I’d also like to add that they have no alternative to swiping the card. There is no manual way to input your ID. The magnet on my card is damaged and the person in IT said all but “Go Fuck Yourself” to me; guess we can’t blame them for lacking people skills or any sort of social aptitude for that matter.

Another cutback: I tried making a student health center sick appointment today, and when the nurse told me there were none available, she suggested walk-in appointments. Walk-in appointments now have a charge of “somewhere between $5 and $10.”

I could be wrong but I don’t remember that charge last year.

Goddammit, I tried to print at 3rd North this summer and was assured that it would be back to free and 24 hours come fall semester.

Bullshit, I say.

Certain majors require more printing than others. Yeah, it’s a pain in the ass when the dramatic writer in front of you has a sixty page script to print, but it’s an even larger pain in the ass when your professor asks you to reprint all sixty pages of your barely-edited script each week.

As a silver lining, maybe professors will tone down requirements for superfluous printing.

Also, I know that it’s fairly common (at least with the universities I’m familiar with) to provide free printing for students.

[...] Or maybe NYU’s funds are so low that they need to charge us for our walk-ins as well as printing. Personally, I’m a little bummed. Those five bucks could go towards much more useful things, like [...]

[...] sergeant we spoke with eventually softened and lamented that NYU students pay a boatload, only to pay for printing. But he maintained there was no reason to out the NYU-affiliated victim, even if our tuition [...]

[...] addition to the loss of free printing, it seems NYU is cutting costs by scratching out another beloved service to students – a [...]

I hear rumors of free printing still existing in Tisch Classroom LC19 and 194 Mercer St, Rm 304…can anybody confirm these?

Also, sorry, but it’s BS to charge us for printing. At the very least, make the printing where NYU supplies the printers/ink, but students supply paper. Palladium is doing that (although of course, there is no ink in the printer)…

I simply enjoy that at New School we’ve always gotten $150 a semester and ya’ll only get $50! and it is helping the environment if people have to think about how much they use and have to be discretionary about it.

I’m still laughing that we have $100 more than you.

[...] is doing far better than his peers considering the current financial climate that has already robbed us of free printing and a comprehensive bus schedule. [...]

[...] be grateful that you go to NYU, where the administration can at least recognize that while they may mess up a lot, they have no business fucking with our sex lives. [...]

[...] simply wants more of your parents’ money — all $200,000 of it. I mean, not even printing is safe [...]

[...] economy” means you shouldn’t be reporting on printing charges at NYU two days after NYU Local without a single reference to that fact that you found the story on our site. When we miss [...]