Staff Editorial: Freeloaders ruin free printing for everyone

Memo to all non-students and non-faculty: Johnson County Community College is not your FedEx office. The librarians are not there to help you make copies of your next meeting outline.

You may be a taxpayer, but you do not deserve the free copying and printing you take advantage of on a regular basis. You have ruined free copying and printing for every tuition paying student who deserves it. The recent news that Terry Calaway, college president, will likely pursue a printing and copying fee in the library for next year should offend all tuition paying students.

But Calaway is left with no alternative. The problem of non-students clogging up the computers and using paper and printers bought with tuition money has plagued the college for years. In this economy, everyone is trying take short cuts. Even in our privileged county, college graduates are feeling the pinch.

However, by using these resources and in all likelihood forcing the college to implement a printing fee, they are directly insulting students who need them for classes. Calaway also expects tuition to rise by at least $4 for next semester, or $48 for the typical 12-credit student.

Who knows how much tuition would increase if the college didn’t have to throw money into the bottomless pit that is paper purchase for non-college goers? As students, we already deal with a shortage of useable computers during most hours of the day. Because library computers are open to everyone, that tool checking his Facebook while you wait for an opening to work on a research project could be a freeloader.

Community college or not, that is unacceptable for an institution of higher learning. The printing and copying fee is a necessary evil. The keyword in that sentence may be evil, but the college is not the villain. The villain is the college graduate already making nearly six figures who refuses to use a public library or even buy a printer themselves.

Hopefully if this new policy is enforced, the college will give adequate printing and copying credit to students. It is the least we could ask for.