All the president's half-ply

Tufts, like any other institution that wants to remain profitable and in business, is focused on efficiency. A university that caters to over 5,000 students – to say nothing of the faculty – obviously buys things in bulk, which is fine. In addition, it's not that hard to see why offering free, unlimited printing is beyond reasonable; just a few abusers can cost buckets of cash in wasted paper. However, over the past few years, Tufts seems to have crossed the metaphorical line, and efficiency has become more and more nickel-and-diming. That line, thin as it may be, is marked by half-ply toilet paper, expensive printing and an overall neglect for the little things that affect the people who actually attend the school – the people for whom these frugal actions are taken in the first place.

To be clear, half-ply toilet paper is not the issue (though it is a well-known grievance for any Tufts student that has lived in a dorm or used a bathroom on Tufts' campus). Instead, it is a clear example of the fact that Tufts can shrug off the ways in which its decisions affect the daily life of its students.

Obviously, no person is going to choose to leave the university or transfer based on how thick the toilet paper is, nor will they go bankrupt at 10 cents a page. However, there is a certain attitude that a student can tend to develop when these repeated small offenses add up. It may come to seem that the university puts academics before the well-being of its students, even though this is far from the case. This is fair, and some argue that they should act in this manner. No one is asking Tufts to defund the new physics building so that we can be treated to the poshest of Charmin Ultra Soft. However, with tuition reaching ever closer to $50,000 a year, it is only natural that one can, in a half-jocular manner, ask if this is really the best their tuition can afford.

All half-hearted rhetoric and tongue-in-cheek musings aside, it is important that Tufts strikes a balance between academics and student life. Whether it involves recognizing that the mouse caught in Latin Way last week is indicative of a larger issue, or seeing that universities in our area offer free or reduced price printing (such as Harvard, who has five-cent printing as opposed to our 10 – we know that we love to beat Harvard at the small things), there are steps we can take to make students feel more valued. Even little things such as upping the ply of the paper in Tisch and offering some printing credit independent of the JumboCash received on meal plans makes students feel like they're getting their money's worth, especially when we've lost so much class time due to the snow. Digital paper submissions could be encouraged, as could – as we have suggested in previous editorials – more online solutions to missed classes.

It's a small problem, sure, but solving a small problem is still a step forward to making Tufts the best institution it could be. Pursuing our primary objective as research institution is paramount, but thinking of the researchers themselves is something that should not be forgotten.