Recently, there was a controversy at the University of Toledo (not really a controversy, but the school newspaper tried to make it one) about how the IT department has decided to set a print limit of 1200 pages per semester for each student in the computer labs. At first, I was happy about this because I realized that this would save a lot of paper in the long run. But then I saw in the paper that people were upset at how low this limit was compared to their unlimited pages they had before. And that got me thinking about how many pages 1200 actually is. I mean really, are these students printing out their own personal copies of War and Peace? (By the way, War and Peace is 1475 pages in the 2006 paperback edition so maybe they're upset they're not going to find out what happens in the last 275 pages.)
I've spent quite a few semesters in college, so I know how much stuff a person can print in the course of a few months. I can tell you that it's less than 1200 pages a semester (9600 over the course of an average college career) but it's still a whole lot of paper. That got me thinking about how maybe college is really bad for the environment. I mean, all that paper (up to 2400 pages per year x 23000 students = 55,200,000 pages per year in the University of Toledo's case) really adds up.
And it's not just paper from the computer labs. There's the notes from class that the instructor prints out and don't even get me started on the textbooks! So much paper all used for a couple of months and then thrown away or (hopefully) recycled.
So let's all drop out of college! And there's a bonus to it all! If none of us have college degrees, then we won't get jobs in offices. Who do you think uses more paper per year? An accountant or a mechanic? Jobs that need college degrees use much more paper than jobs that only need a high school education. And that's a fact. Or at least that's a fact that my brain tells me is probably right.
PS Count Rostov dies near the end of War and Peace, in case you were wondering.
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