College Publications Printing Benchmarks study looks closely at how colleges are controlling their printing costs through substitution of online for print publications and aggressive management measures. The study helps its readers to answer questions such as: what types of printing capabilities do colleges maintain in-house?  What kinds of printing jobs are outsourced and which done in-house.? What has been the impact of the development of online publications on print runs or course catalogs, viewbooks, direct mail pieces, tickets and poster, annual reports, magazines and other college publications?  How do colleges view the trade-offs if and when print publications are eliminated?  How much have colleges saved when they reduce or eliminate certain kinds of printed items.  What has been the impact on college magazines? 

The study also looks at how much college generated content is intended for online publications and how much for print.  It defines the size and direction of publications budgets, and gives hard data on print runs for key publications such as course catalogs. The study also looks at management issues in college printing, such as the degree of centralization in printing decision-making.  

Just of few of the many findings in this 96-page report are that:

• 39.3% of the colleges sampled no longer print their course catalogs relying exclusively on online versions.

• 71.43% of survey participants print posters and tickets on campus.

• 55.56% of colleges with more than 8,000 students outsource the printing of most college promotional materials.

• Colleges with between 4,000 and 8,000 students had a mean annual publications budget of $112,500.

• 20% of public schools and 25% of private schools said they had reduced or eliminated the printing runs or frequency of publication of their college magazines.