Whether your college or university takes a centralized or decentralized approach to printer management, campus-wide printing can cause major and persistent headaches for both IT and purchasing admin. Between rising costs, aging equipment, student print demands, security vulnerabilities, and growing sustainability goals, higher education institutions are feeling the strain. The true cost of printing isn’t just about paper and toner. When you add up hardware inefficiencies, service calls, lost productivity, and waste, the numbers can be staggering. The solution to easing this pain and burden? Managed Print Services for Higher Education.
Managed Print Services (MPS) offers a strategic approach to optimize your entire print environment, transforming it from a source of frustration into a streamlined and efficient operation, and the cost difference might surprise you.
The Hidden and Surprising Costs of Unmanaged University Printing
At first glance, sticking with the status quo – individual printer purchases, departmental supply orders, and reactive maintenance – might appear to be the most straightforward and potentially cheapest option when it comes to managing print devices on college campuses. However, this default approach to university printing does not give full visibility into print usage or costs.
What are some tell-tale signs of unmanaged printing?
- Decentralized purchasing and budgeting
- Little to no tracking of print volumes or user behavior
- Inconsistent or outdated hardware
- High printer-to-user ratios
- Frequent IT tickets for printer-related issues
What’s more, the financial impact of unmanaged printing is usually underestimated. Hidden costs associated with unmanaged printing can include:
Oversized and/or Overprovisioned Print Equipment: Departments often buy more printers than needed—or the wrong type altogether. Printers that are too small for departmental needs break down faster, while underused high-end devices waste energy and budget.
Toner and Supply Waste: Departments often over-order toner or hoard cartridges “just in case.” This unnecessary overstocking leads to wasted supplies, expired inventory, and a lack of visibility into actual usage. While this may not seem like a huge cost, consider the collective cost of partially used or forgotten toner cartridges across an entire college campus!
Escalating Break-Fix Costs: Unbudgeted repair costs, emergency service fees, and the productivity lost while waiting for a fix all add up.
IT Burden: Your IT department has more critical tasks than troubleshooting printer issues, installing drivers on individual machines, and chasing down supply orders. The time spent on these reactive tasks is both a major drain on their valuable time and a significant hidden cost.
Security Vulnerabilities: Unsecured printers can be a vulnerable entry point for data breaches. The cost of recovering from a security incident involving sensitive printed documents – including legal fees, reputational damage, and regulatory fines – can be astronomical.
Wasted Resources and Environmental Impact: Unmanaged printing often lacks controls and policies, leading to excessive and unnecessary printing. Beyond the direct cost of paper, excessive printing contributes to a larger carbon footprint. This all conflicts with sustainability initiatives.
Inconsistent User Experience: When faculty, staff, and students struggle with unreliable printers or lack of accessibility, their productivity suffers. The cumulative impact of these small delays and frustrations across your entire institution can translate to significant lost time and efficiency.
Managed Print Services for Higher Education:
The Cure to Campus-Wide Printing Headaches
Managed Print Services for Higher Education directly addresses these hidden costs and challenges by offering a proactive and holistic approach that brings transparency and control to a university’s print environment.
Right Sized and Optimized Equipment: A good managed print services provider will assess your current print environment needs and usage, to ensure you have the right number, the right size, and the right type of equipment for your printing needs. This includes eliminating or consolidating unnecessary print devices, which can result in significant savings.
Predictable Billing and Cost Control: Managed print services offer either a per-page or all-inclusive billing model for your printing. This means your printing costs are transparent, predictable, and forecastable.
Proactive Supply Management and Maintenance: With managed print services for Higher Education, your provider will monitor your printer fleet in real-time to proactively and automatically replenish your toner and other needed supplies when you need it, ensuring you don’t run out while eliminating the need to overstock contributing to savings. Additionally, regular maintenance and remote monitoring help prevent printer downtime. When issues do arise, a dedicated service team provides efficient support, minimizing disruption.
Reduced IT Burden: Because an MPS provider will handle everything related to your printers – from supplies replenishment to break-fix service – this frees up IT from having to worry about printer-related issues and lets them focus their time on more critical tasks.
Enhanced Security: MPS providers ensure printers are secure and have the latest security and firmware updates. Additionally, they can work with a department to implement security protocols to protect sensitive information, including user authentication, secure print release, and data encryption on print devices. This significantly reduces the risk of costly data breaches.
Improved Sustainability: By tracking print usage through managed print services for Higher Education, it’s much easier to identify areas of improvement that can help reduce your environmental footprint. Additionally, MPS solutions often include tools to implement print policies (like duplex printing by default, print quotas, and secure print release), thus minimizing unnecessary or wasteful printing and promoting responsible printing habits.
Better User Experience: Reliable and well-maintained printers, combined with user-friendly solutions, ensure that faculty, staff, and students can print what they need quickly and efficiently, maximizing their productivity.
Take Control of Printing with Managed Print Services for Higher Education
Unmanaged printing doesn’t just cost universities’ money; it also costs valuable time, energy, productivity, and resources. Partnering with a Managed Print Services for Higher Education provider to implement an effective MPS strategy can transform departmental printing from a drain on money and resources into a streamlined and cost-effective operation.
Ready to uncover the hidden costs in your university’s printing environment? Schedule a no-obligation print assessment and discover how MPS can help you save more, waste less, and do better.
