Everyone laughs at the idea of not being able to graduate from college until they pay their library fines but when you look at the actual statistics you quickly discover that when all those payments are added together it's actually - for want of a better phrase - 'big business.'
These numbers, published by the Irish Mirror last year, are worth remembering, and show the alarming sums some universities have made in the last few years from late registration fines, library fines and other such offences.
For instance, between 2012 and 2016, Trinity College made a collected a whopping €560,555 from late library returns. When you add all the different fines together, the college made close to €1m. €935,255 to be precise.
As many a student can testify, library loans in particular can feel innocuous but over time they quickly spiral. Here are the figures for some of the other top colleges across the country, in the same five year period:
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That adds up to just short of €2m in library fines from those six universities alone. Maybe you should quickly check your room to make sure you haven't accidentally left of a borrowed copy of The Wadsworth Anthology of Poetry lying in the corner.
via: IrishMirror.ie
