An earlier version of this story had an inaccuracy related to the fee structure and source of funds for student printing services. It has since been corrected to accurately reflect that printing service funds are included in students’ tuition at DePaul. 

Junior Steven Francis walked up to the printing kiosk in the Richardson library and swiped his ID. He was surprised to find that his printing balance was much less than it was last year.

Francis had over $100 in printing money at the end of the spring quarter, but now he only has $24.

“Wasn’t there more money at one point?” Francis asked.

Before fall quarter, all students saw their print money accounts reset. According to DePaul’s Help Desk, students are allotted $24.00 of free printing per quarter, except for law students, who are allotted $36.00 per semester. Balances carry over each term but are reset at the end of the school year, just before the fall quarter begins.

While this is DePaul’s Student Printing Policy, the university did not reset printing balances for the past two years.

According to Kat Keating, the associate director of DePaul’s Help Desk, the balances were supposed to reset. It was human error that caused the balances to roll over after the 2019-2020 and the 2020-2021 school years, and the Help Desk returned to its reset policy at the end of last school year.

Students can opt-out of other student services like U-Passes, but the quarterly allocated $24 in printing money is a part of tuition, not an added fee. Because printing balances are baked into tuition, the balances are normally reset year-to-year. Due to human error, during the 2020-2021 school year, when DePaul was completely online, the printing money started adding up

When students returned to campus last school year, they saw much larger balances than the standard $24. If a student did not come to campus to print during the 2020-2021 school year, they would have had at least $96, or four quarters’ worth of printing money in their accounts.

If students were here during the 2019-2020 school year, which ended with online school during Spring Quarter, they would have potentially seen an even greater balance in their account last year.

Blue Demons who were freshman at DePaul in 2019 and did not use any of their printing money through their junior year, they would have had a balance of $216 in their accounts last spring.

While Francis was confused by the small number left in his account, it did not bother him.

“Since there are so many people that submit things online now, I think [printing money is] rather, maybe not arbitrary, but it’s less important,” Francis said.

It costs $0.08 to print a single-sided page in black and white and $0.50 to print a single-sided page in color. 

For someone who does not use the printers on campus that often, having printing money reset is not a big deal. For those who have to print a lot, learning that their balance reset was a shocking discovery.

Destiny Strothers, a first-year graduate student in the School of Music, prints her own sheet music for her studies. As a vocalist, Strothers has to print multiple copies of sheet music for each piece she learns. One for herself, one for her accompanist and one for her professor, just in case.

She thinks that printing balance should roll over year-to-year.

“I think it’s great if it resets and you had $0 and [then] you get $24, but I think the opposite should not be true,” Strothers said.

Strothers believes that those who had over $100 remaining in their accounts last Spring should have over $124 in their accounts now.

Other students, like Joseph Corso, believe that the remaining printing funds should be put back toward students’ tuition.

“I think that if it’s not going to be used towards printing, then we should have an explanation for where it’s going or how it can be added,” said Corso. “You know, some of us don’t really have great financial support for some printing, so if that money is not being used, I think it would be best to be put back into our pockets.”

Students who do not print often are happy with the printing policy.

“I have nothing but positive things to say,” said Windy Kasir, a senior at DePaul.

Kasir usually prints at home, using on-campus printers only when necessary. He did not notice a change in printing funds and feels like he always has enough money for printing.

“I just know that I never usually print as much to the point where I run out of my current balance,” Kasir said.

When asked about printing on campus, more students seemed to be concerned about the lack of available printers than the printing money in their accounts.

Michael Jensen, a sophomore music education major, has walked across campus to find printers that work.

“It’s been pretty frustrating,” Jensen said. “I’d say that from what I see, there’s a one out of three chance that the printer I want to go to doesn’t work at that time.”

Paige DeLuca, a freshman at DePaul, decided to buy her own printer after having unreliable experiences.

“It was stressful enough for me where I was like, ‘I think I need my own’ because I don’t want my grades to suffer and my school experience to suffer from not being able to print my work,”  DeLuca said.

No matter what students’ relationship is to printing money, they can expect to have an additional $24 added to their accounts next quarter.