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Controlling Printing Costs
(This is the first article in our three-part series about controlling school budget dollars using the latest technology tools)

Remember when computers were supposed to herald a paperless society? Unfortunately, that prediction has gone the way of the pterodactyl. Even with advances in storage, document search technology and on-line access to information, the world still turns on the printed word, especially in education.

Besides the massive amounts of handouts and student papers that are written each school year, schools produce a mountain of paper for administrative functions as well as unnecessary print jobs, such as printing out website pages and users that send duplicate jobs to the printer. Much of a school’s budget for printing and paper is, well – let’s face it - just plain wasted.

It's an expense that can quickly get out of control and schools are starting to take extreme measures, including requiring students to bring reams of paper to class and unplugging printers. Schools are spending thousands of dollars on service calls for printers, buying paper by the truckload and purchasing expensive toner cartridges. Printers are being replaced long before their normal life cycle should be over.

Adding to the problem are the growing concerns over waste management and environmental issues and schools are faced with an expensive and confusing dilemma.
So, what should schools be doing to control the expense and the waste of unnecessary printing? The use of computers is still growing and students need constant access to technology to prepare for the future.

Fortunately, there are new tools, such as Print-Limit by GenevaLogic, that can help schools drastically cut printing costs using print management software. The new technology can save schools up to 70% of their printing costs by limiting the amount of wasteful printing. For instance a high school with a student population of 1,200 students could realize a savings of as much as $16,000 per year. Better yet, because of the cost savings, print management software pays for itself in just a few months so it can be implemented during the current budget cycle and still save your school a significant amount of money.

This type of software tool is installed on the print server and uses the existing user logon information to create ‘print accounts’ for each user in the school that can be both monitored and controlled by school principals and administrators.

Here are just a few of the advantages of print management software:

• Allows an administrator to control, limit, log and charge for printing on a per-user basis.
• Student and teacher accounts can be monitored or restricted. For instance, an administrator can set up a quota, effectively giving them a ‘print budget’.
• Administrators can eliminate duplicate print jobs, restrict jobs with too many pages and control the use of color printers.
• Administrators can use reports to see who is printing, how much they are printing and how much printing is costing the school.

If your school or district is concerned about spiraling printing costs, find out how much your school can save using the latest print management software. Download our free cost savings matrix by clicking here. To download and try Print-Limit, visit our Print-Limit web page. Or find out more about Print-Limit by contacting the knowledgeable education experts at GenevaLogic. (See Below.)

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