This semester, grad school aspirants, job and internship seekers and scholarship applicants will have another item to pay for: official transcripts.

On Aug. 16, the Office of Student Records raised the cost of official transcripts, previously free, to $5. Director of the Office of Student Records Sue Hosack said that this fee actually reflects a return to previous levels. Prior to 2004, transcripts cost $5 as well.

“In 2004, we wanted to automate some of our processes and allow more students to submit things on the Internet. At the time, our office didn’t have the capability to handle credit card transactions so we made a recommendation to eliminate the transcript fee,” Hosack said. “The financial people approved and said that loss of income was acceptable in the financial environment we were in back then.”

Transcript costs come as part of a larger movement across the University to cut costs in response to the financial instability of 2008.

“In the last year or two, the financial position of the University has changed, and we’re just looking for all kinds of ways to save money,” Hosack said. “Cutting costs is especially difficult for her office since many of the functions of her office, such as printing diplomas or making ID cards, cannot be eliminated.”

Although charging for transcripts is a common practice at universities across the country, the fee still has some students annoyed.

Senior Lauren Barth, who is majoring in biomedical engineering and healthcare management, is planning on applying to five to eight graduate schools. Barth expressed irritation at the transcript fee.

“A lot of applications ask for two copies of the transcript. I’m not sure that they realize it’s an additional cost for us when they ask for two copies,” Barth said. While the fees will just be an additional cost, she said, the fee is not a negligible amount.

Hosack estimated that the average undergraduate student submits half a dozen transcripts a year, but this number is highly dependent on the individual student as well as his or her field or study. Law students tend to send out the most transcripts, often releasing 10 to 20 transcripts for clerkship applications. Hosack said that before 2004, law students would send out $50 worth of transcripts without batting an eye.

But Barth doesn’t think the cost will affect the number of transcripts ordered.

“Unlike printing, ordering transcripts is not an arbitrary cost. Usually, there is a distinct purpose [for ordering transcripts],” she said. “The fee does not seem like something that will reduce the number of transcripts ordered. I don’t understand where the $5 is coming from or why this process is being affected.”

Hosack agreed. She said that she doesn’t think the fee is expensive enough to cut down on the number of transcripts ordered. But she does think that those students who used to request transcripts just to see what was on it and make sure it was in order will no longer do so. She encourages these students to use the unofficial transcript, which can be found on WebSTAC.

“Finding a job or getting into a school is too important to let $5 stop you from applying,” Barth said.