Students are set to save up to £200,000 on printing this year after lobbying from De Montfort Students’ Union’s Officer Team.
Students at De Montfort University (DMU) are set to save up to £200,000 on printing this year after lobbying from De Montfort Students’ Union (DSU)’s Officer Team.
Mike Mayes, VP Media and Communications at DSU, has secured the saving after months of work with the university’s Student Print Project Board – which has already seen 90 new printers fitted across campus, and printing costs slashed by up to 80%.
He said: “As an Officer Team we spend a lot of time talking to students and finding out what they might be struggling with, and something that came up time and time again was the cost of printing and the financial burden that it places on our students.
“I’ve been working on a solution with the Student Print Project Board alongside colleagues from the university, and am pleased to say students can now enjoy much, much cheaper printing costs.”
Black and white A4 will now cost 1p per page (down from 4p) and colour A3 will cost 6p (down from 30p). A full break down of the new costs is available here.
90 new Ricoh printers have already been installed across the DMU campus.
While the new pricing will replace the previous £5 printer credit, Mike explained that students are set to save almost £200,000 over the academic year.
“If students this year print just as much as they did last year – a staggering five million pages –the new prices will save the student body £186,400, which is an average saving of around £8.45 per student,” he said.
The Officer Team, in a campaign led by DP Education Mollie Footitt, are also working on an increase in the number of online-only submissions, which will also remove some of the financial burden printing can place on students and help reduce the environmental impact of printing
Mike continued: “I think this is a real demonstration of the fact that both students’ union and university want students to have a good experience here at DMU, and I hope students will be happy with the new printing costs and the savings they’ll enjoy this year.
“I love being able to have such a direct impact and I am really appreciative of colleagues at the university who have worked so tremendously hard on this project.
“I am really passionate in making sure that students’ academic interests are being represented, and this is another of those areas where we’ve made sure student views were heard and taken into account during the process.”
For a full break down on the new pricing structure, and more information on the new printing system, click here.
Mike's lobbying of the university means printing will now be up to 80% cheaper than before.
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