Printing Quota

Every semester, Carnegie Mellon students, faculty, and staff are provided with a $40 printing quota that does not carry over to the next semester. Therefore, it might seem like a waste of money if you don’t use up all $40 for printing during that semester.

However, the $40 isn’t an additional charge for printing. Rather, it is a way for Carnegie Mellon Computing Services to “monitor” how printing resources are being used. The quota is a “value token,” each printed page is deducted from this preset value until this value is diminished.

The quota still allows for a significant amount of printing. For example, a letter size black-and-white printout is $0.05 per page. If you are only printing in this format you can print up to 800 pages of documents in one semester—double that if you print on both sides of the page. Remember that there are higher costs for color printouts, and coated or tabloid size paper.

The real goal of the printing quota is to encourage users to exercise prudent printing habits. Only when you exceed your quota will you need to spend additional print dollars. More quota can be purchased through Carnegie Mellon PlaidCa$h.

For more information about printing on and off campus, visit http://www.cmu.edu/computing/clusters/printing.