EDIFICE COMPLEXES. The editorial board at the Northern Star puts the cost shifting problem into perspective.

Among every college student’s essentials are books, pens and, of course, paper. Somehow, a building dedicated to graduates just doesn’t make the list.

Information Technology Services’ inconvenient new card-swiping system, designed to regulate the amount of paper used in the computer labs, would not be needed if NIU got its priorities straight.

If this university’s budget doesn’t have room to expand the funds it spends on paper, perhaps NIU administrators should be encouraging NIU alumni, such as Dennis Barsema, to make donations for paper - an education must - rather than $2.5 million toward an alumni center that students won’t step foot in until years down the line, when they are alumni.

Students pay about $10,000 a year to attend school here. Nowhere in the tuition bill does it state that the price of attending NIU does not include paper.

Their proposals become anticlimactic, although the students do have a point. The problem, however, is that there are no naming opportunities for paper bins. Buildings and rooms are another matter.