Graduating students leave thousands of pounds on print service

A freedom of information request to Imperial College has revealed that undergraduate and taught postgraduate students graduating from Imperial College left over £13,465.09 of unused printer credit on the College’s system at the end of the 2012/2013 academic year. This is significantly more than the same figure for most other UK universities. Students at the University of Cambridge only left £5,142.23 on the University’s print service while University of St Andrew’s students left £4,302.80. The College, however, was keen to point out that “students can reclaim balances of £10 or more via an expenses claim form” – a service that is not available at most other Universities – and that it actively tries to dissuade students who are reaching the end of their course from buying excessive printer credits. Furthermore, the College made assurances that any surplus that is left unclaimed is always invested back into the print service infrastructure, for example funding the “replacement of swipe card readers by contactless card readers”. This surplus only represents 8.7% of the total £155,706.60 of printer credit that was purchased by students in 2012/2013.