According to a national research firm, the average K12 school district produces 15 to 25 pages per student per day - including documents produced onsite and through commercial means. Anyone curious as to what these pages cost? Well, most analysts would agree the average-cost-per-page in an education environments is somewhere around $0.02 to $0.04 cents per page, depending whether it is produced on a copier or printer. The figure is based on total operating cost, which includes expense such as electricity, real estate space, acquisition cost, bank financing, supply consumables, service and paper.

Although a few cents doesn’t seem like much, copier and printer costs quickly add up. A district with a 10,000 student population will spend $540,000 (15 pages per student) to $900,000 (25 pages per student) annually, just to provide copying and printer services.

The good news is there are multitude steps administrators can take, simple or complex, to reduce document output. In fact, reducing total output by just one page-per-student-per-day equals an annual savings of $36,000 to $72,000 - a target that can be easily attained in most districts.

So look around your school district and determine what steps you can take to reduce excess copies and prints. Chances are very real you could save tens of thousands of dollars. We suggest you read Hannah Recla’s post titled 14 Ideas for Reducing Paper Usage in Copiers and Printers. It offers several, east to implement suggestions to will help your district reduce the number of pages-per-student-per-day to achieve real savings.