Whether it be a research paper, coupons or class notes, printing costs can add up, but students have many options when it comes to printing on- and off-campus.
OSU libraries currently offer purchase printing, with one black and white page costing 9 cents and color printing costing 25 cents per page. Pages must be purchased with money on a student’s BuckID.
WiredOut, a campus technology store, offers students deals on printers, the most popular being the Hewlett Packard HP Deskjet 3054 , an all-in-one printer, selling for $50. The product currently sells for $79.99 at Staples.
A combo pack of black and tricolor ink package costs $30.99 from HP’s website, which can produce 190 black pages and 165 color pages, according to HP’s website.
For an HP cartridge from their website, a 25-page article will cost about $4 to print in black ink only, and about $4.75 to print in color. This does not include the original $50 purchase of your own printer assuming you purchase the printer from WiredOut. Using a library printer will cost a student with the same 25-page article $2.25 for black ink, and $6.25 for color.
Costs for black-ink only through on-campus options are significantly lower than buying your own cartridge, while color items are cheaper to print with your own printer if you use the HP Deskjet.
“The only thing I would say (about owning a printer) is just convenience… especially off-campus,” Scotty Wells, a fourth-year in marketing and logistics and WiredOut sales associate, said. “It costs a lot more for you to print it.”
WiredOut offers ink refills on most HP and other brands at $9.99 for black and $14.99 for color, Wells said.
Buying a cartridge from a manufacturer or campus location isn’t the only option for students. Located between 13th and 14th Avenues on High Street, Cartridge World will also refill student ink cartridges at a reduced rate. For the HP Deskjet 3054, a black ink and color combo costs $24 if a student brings in an already-empty cartridge.
Cartridge World also works with other printer brands such as Epson, Cannon, Lexmark and Dell.
“Normal turn-around for HP is fairly quick,” said Ben Schwarzwalder, store manager. “We usually have (HP cartridges) already available.”
Schwarzwalder said that by having already-produced cartridges they are capable of doing an almost immediate swap out for the used empty cartridges. Cartridge World also accepts BuckID.
Frank Saraniti, a fourth-year in exercise science, said campus prices are “way over-priced for a piece of paper.”
“I probably print out once or twice a week (at Thompson Library),” Saraniti said. “I usually just print papers I need because I don’t have enough money to print notes and everything.”
Lines at the libraries for students waiting for printers can sometimes be a pain, according to Saraniti. He said sometimes there’s no lines, but has had days where he’s waited about five minutes to use a computer to print.
Saraniti said having a page limit for printing might reduce some of the problem.
Margaret Chinn, a graduate student in social work, said she decided to buy her own laser printer since she was printing at FedEx Office.
“It was very convenient and it was chipping a few dollars here and there when I could just have the convenience of doing it at home,” Chinn said.
She’s hoping that because of her purchase of a laser printer she won’t have to buy a new toner cartridge for at least a year since she prints about every other day with papers, coupons and directions.
“Being a student here before, because I (did) my undergraduate here … I did use campus printing a lot,” Chinn said. “I think they were 9 or 10 cents a page, which is pretty standard so I didn’t have any objections.”
Students can print with their BuckIDs at several OSU library locations including Thompson Library, Moritz Law Library, Science & Engineering Library and the Veterinary Medicine Library.
