Readership's popularity places program in debt

The Association of Students of the University of Nebraska hoped the USA Today Collegiate Readership Program would be successful in its first semester on the UNL campus.

But they had no idea it would be the second-most popular college readership program in the nation -- oh, and go $68,565 over budget.

"This program is a victim of its own success," said Daryl Swanson, Nebraska Unions director. "Since the program was new, we had no track record to go by when we established the budget -- we had no idea how many papers would need to be delivered each day."

Swanson said an average of 6,119 newspapers are delivered each day, a number determined by USA Today distributors depending on the day of the week, the current news and even the weather.

The university only has to pay for the newspapers that are taken, costing about $1,948.70 per day.

The readership program is funded by student fees -- about $5 per student per semester -- and gives UNL students access to the Lincoln Journal Star, Omaha World Herald, New York Times and USA Today. There are 18 distribution boxes, which require a student ID card, and more than 30 open racks in the residence halls, Swanson said.

ASUN President Kyle Arganbright said he was unsure how the over-budgeting problem was going to be fixed. He said a decision would not be made until January, after all the statistics had been tabulated, as usage could drop in the last few weeks of the semester.

"We have two options: increase student fees or alter service," Arganbright said. "Some people have talked about cutting the New York Times or cutting the daily allotment of all the newspapers."

Swanson said dropping the New York Times, the least distributed and most expensive of the four newspapers, would not solve the problem.

"The New York Times costs 40 cents a paper, $264.40 a day and only $39,660 a semester," Swanson said. "Doing away with the Times would not balance the budget and it would turn students to other papers. You can't predict how that would help or hurt the budget."

Swanson said he has observed the success of this program and hoped it would be given a larger budget.

"Students voted overwhelmingly for this," he said. "If the budget's shortfall is because of its success, students will probably be willing to fund it."

Arganbright said ASUN would decide how to handle the project's budget for the remainder of the year, and the issue may be put to a vote on the Blackboard Web site.

"If we keep running it as it is we will definitely be going to go into the red," he said. "It has just been more popular than we thought."