One of the main lessons the college experience teaches students is the importance of financial responsibility.

While trivial tasks such as budgeting for outings to Café 210 and gathering enough quarters to do laundry occur on a regular basis, they help us to prepare for larger tasks, such as planning spring break trips to Acapulco or buying a new car. After four years, each college graduate is well on his or her way toward making wise financial decisions.

Some may argue that it is the university itself that teaches its undergraduates how to be financially responsible while others claim that the transition from living with parents to living with peers is the cause.

For those who support the logic behind the latter, I agree with you entirely. And for those who support the logic behind the former, I ask, what Penn State are you attending?

With the exception of a handful of necessary campus improvements, and university donations to help Hurricane Katrina victims, the majority of the financial decisions I have seen university officials make have been poor ones.

I really got to thinking about Penn State finances last week when I opened my on-campus mailbox in Redifer Commons. Rather than receiving the letter from home and law school view book I was expecting, I was greeted with the 2006-07 Penn State Student Directory, hot off the presses.

As I looked around, I saw about 20 of these directories on the floor and in the trashcan, a clear indication that students have no need for the 400-page book. And it's not just the students who have no need for this directory; the university has no need for it either. All of the information provided about each student can be accessed through the Penn State Directory online.

But rather than send an e-mail message to students explaining that this information can be accessed online, the Penn State Department of University Publications prints more than 14,000 of these books so that each student living on campus can have one.

To be perfectly fair, the 60 pages of advertisements located in the back of the directory probably cover most, if not all, of the printing and publication expenses. But why waste the time contacting advertisers, compiling the advertisements and student information, and publishing the book if many students do not use it?

The first time I came across the Penn State Student Directory was in fall 2002, a time when it was certainly much more useful than it is today. Four years ago, cell phones were not as prevalent as they are today, and most students living on campus had telephones in their dorm rooms. Today, very few students rely on the landlines in their dorms, and thus the dorm telephone numbers provided in the directory are useless.

There are also a number of students who change rooms or choose to move off campus in the middle of the year, and the information provided about them is rendered useless as well. And don't forget about students who study abroad for one semester; they are in the same boat.

University officials seem to ignore the fact that students change residences throughout the year, and they also seem to ignore their own initiatives. This semester, Penn State began a campaign to decrease the volume of trash left by students in university buildings. So why then does it provide students with even more garbage to leave around campus?

All things considered, the time and money spent on the print edition of the Penn State Student Directory are complete wastes.

Students have no need for this book when the information is available on the Internet. And furthermore, its publication only demonstrates that the university would rather produce 14,000 copies of a book no one will use than produce something useful, like a plan to trim the budget and lower tuition rates.

Penn State University provides nearly 83,000 students with a world-class education every year, but with regard to finances, it only teaches its students how to be irresponsible.