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<ol>
<li><p>Most colleges I know of…including urban ones don’t operate computer labs/printing facilities 24/7. This was certainly the case at my rural LAC.</p></li>
<li><p>If the weather at my rural LAC was bad enough for me to not go to the computer lab to print my stuff, it’s because the weather was such that the computer labs ended up being closed as a result. </p></li>
<li><p>Reliability of computer lab computers/printers can leave much to be desired due to abuse by students, understaffing, overcrowding/availability*, paper jabs/printer issues, accelerated wear from having many more users in a short period of time…especially during midterm/finals. </p></li>
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<li>While it doesn’t seem to be as bad as when I was in college, I still notice the college computer labs at several colleges in the NYC area still get crowded at times and suffer occasional breakdowns at the worst possible times for their users.</li>
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<p>Sounds like you probably purchased some low-end budget inkjets commonly marketed as “budget friendly” without factoring in:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Expense of replacing ink at more frequent intervals than with b/w laser printers. One startup I worked for where the main printer was a budget inkjet cost $30/month for ink replacements for printing only a few hundred pages and had many maintenance headaches/breakdowns. In contrast, my first and still working laser printer cartridge works out to less than $7/year…and that’s printing several hundred pages/year. In 20 years…I’m still on my second cartridge and I print plenty of stuff out for myself over those years. Moreover, the print quality is better and I don’t have issues with inkjet printer head issues, ink drying out, etc.</p></li>
<li><p>Build quality being so cheap many from what I’ve seen barely last six-months-year before they breakdown to the point I often see them dumped in garbage disposal areas by residential buildings and college campuses.</p></li>
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