<p>My daughters college had less then 1,000 students. I think it's a individual student/college thing. I just don't see the point in buying one ahead of time if it's not going to be needed.</p>
<p>My S goes to a big state u. He took a printer as did his roommate. Their dorm did not have a printer for everyone to use. I believe the dorm next to theirs had a computer lab but don't know how late it stayed open. S and roommate were both late night/last minute workers and having the printers in the room was a huge benefit for them. </p>
<p>Having two turnned out to be a plus as S's printer went on the fritz right after Christmas so he was able to use roommate's printer until his got fixed. Most all of his friends had printers in their rooms. Maybe it was a "big state u...spread out campus" thing.</p>
<p>S and roommate moved off campus soph. year so definitely needed the printers then.</p>
<p>Son took comp sci first semester, had leftover printing credit he used second semester, also dorm printers available- cheaper to not own one (even with a free one available, the cost per page for ink). It may depend on one's major- science versus one with many papers.</p>
<p>Based on all these different views it is definitely an individual matter. Same for laptop versus desktop- regardless of majority opinion for any given college. It would be so much easier if there were clearcut answers. Good luck.</p>
<p>For me, having a printer was definitely convenient when I didn't want to walk 5 minutes to print something (ie, late at night/early in the morning). That said, it isn't necessary all that often, and, despite having a printer, when I needed to print a lot of pages, I printed on university printers anyway. I think the ideal set-up is one printer per room, with roommates alternating who buys the ink/paper. My 4 person suite had two printers (and the sharing on those.principles worked very well), but one probably would have sufficed.</p>
<p>Printers are essentials for both D & S. Especially because they do lots of their work late at night. I too researched this topic to death before purchasing and went with 3-in-1 types. However, NEITHER of my 2 used any functions other than printing.</p>