Dear NCSU Students, Alumni, Parents, and Friends:

NC State University recently announced that unlimited storage for Gmail and Google accounts is ending due to Google's decision to no longer provide this service to universities for free. They will be capping all accounts at 2GB total, for email only. This means NO google drive and the offered transfer option will not cover google photos. There is currently no option for users to pay for added storage either. In reality, a 2GB total limit means it will no longer be feasible for alumni to use these as their primary accounts. While there is an option to switch to @alumni.ncsu.edu accounts, the 2GB cap will force users to migrate a maximum of 12 years of data away from NC State accounts, creating a logistical burden for tens of thousands of NC State alumni, and simultaneously hindering the University's alumni engagement, brand awareness, and fundraising capabilities.

We would like your help to call on the University and on Google to negotiate a path to supporting NCSU Gmail accounts in a useful manner. Please sign our petition!

Eight reasons why NCSU and Google should negotiate to support alumni keeping their original Gmail & Google Accounts: 

1) Scale: Thousands of NCSU alumni use their Gmail account as their primary personal email address and Google account. While we have not yet received the exact number of active users, it is likely in the 90,000+ range based on the data we do have.

2) University Connectedness: Many tens of thousands of NCSU alumni are able to stay connected to the University as a result of these accounts, and many feel that this is a way in which the University continues to consider us as part of the family. It engenders a strong sense of community and belonging.

3) University Pride: We take pride in the fact that NCSU allows us to keep these email accounts. Many of us receive email replies every year from people stating how much they wished they could keep their school email addresses, and complimenting NC State for admirably allowing alumni to do so. The current policy reflects very well on NC State in the broader community.

4) Current Path Not Realistically Feasible: Reducing the storage cap to 2GB may sound like it enables alumni to maintain these accounts. In reality, however, this miniscule storage cap (which is almost 8 times less than the 15GB Google provides to all Gmail users for free) means alums will be forced to migrate away from NCSU Mail. There is no realistic scenario in which 2GB of total storage is sufficient for a primary email account that was previously promised as unlimited storage for life.

 

5) Detrimental to University Fundraising and Engagement: The use of NCSU gmail as primary email accounts comes with significant benefits for the University. First, utilizing these accounts as primary email addresses keeps NC State at the forefront of thousands of alumnis minds multiple times every day. Second, use of these accounts by alumni also provides NC State with a very strong method of contacting the alumni base to keep them engaged in University matters, updated on University news, and to solicit support and donations. Tens of thousands of individual annual donations are made as a direct response to fundraising emails received via Gmail accounts. Eliminating these accounts likely costs the University much more than it saves.

6) Undervalues Wolfpack Alumni Time: This decision essentially forces all NC State alumni who use these accounts to spend many hours migrating to a new service (a process which entails creating a new email address, saving and transferring prior email and Google content, setting up email forwarding, updating contact information for 100s of online accounts with a new email address). This values NC State alumni time at an abysmally low per hour rate. Analysis shows that NCSU is implicitly valuing the time of NC State alumni in the range of 5¢ to 43¢ per hour (1). We do not believe this is a reasonable valuation of Wolfpack alumni time and, as a general point of comparison, is 17 to 300 times less than minimum wage in the USA (2).

7) Valuable Marketing Reach: NC State alumni are sending millions of emails every day from @ncsu.edu email addresses. This creates extremely valuable and well-targeted marketing impressions. In all conceivable scenarios, it would be significantly more expensive for NC State to run a marketing campaign of similar reach (not to mention quality) vs. maintaining these accounts. Our analysis indicates a marketing campaign generating a similar number of daily impressions would be ~19x more expensive than maintaining NCSU Gmail accounts (3).  

8) Many Better Options Available: Even if the university is not willing/able to provide this service to alumni free of charge, there are better options available, including:

1. A significant portion of NCSU Gmail users would be willing to pay the standard Google storage fees to avoid having to migrate. Google currently offers expanded storage to the general public at the following rates: $1.99/month for 100GB of storage; $2.99/month for 200GB of storage; $9.99/month for 2TB of storage, etc (4). Yet this option is not being made available to NCSU Gmail users.
2. If paying subscription fees to Google directly is not an option, a significant portion of NCSU Gmail users would happily donate to the University to cover this expense. This would have the added benefit of increasing alumni giving rates and bringing in net new donors on a regular cadence with high retention.
3. A further option would be simply to raise the storage cap to a viable amount (e.g., 200GB). Based on precedent cases (e.g., the case of Boston University), it is very likely that a miniscule number of users (on the order of several hundred) account for 80%+ of all NCSU Google Account storage demand (5).
4. Several universities are currently facing this issue. The following article details how Boston University (which has a similar undergraduate student population to that of NC State) addressed this issue thoughtfully and productively for a mere 87¢/year/account (6): https://www.bu.edu/articles/2022/university-negotiates-discount-for-new-google-workspace-charges 

While the University is potentially allowing the migration of elected accounts to an alumni email account, with 2GB of storage, we believe strongly that NC State Alumni should have the freedom to make their own decisions and should have the option to keep using their NCSU Gmail accounts as-is.

We recognize that this decision by the University is a result of recent changes to Google’s pricing structure: Google no longer offers free unlimited storage to universities. However, even viewed purely through the lens of return on investment, this is an important issue for the University. We believe, and the evidence strongly suggests, that the current path is extremely suboptimal. When the community-building and symbolic aspects of this decision are taken into account, the evidence is even more overwhelming.

It might seem like a small thing, but using @ncsu.edu accounts as our primary email addresses constitutes an important part of our identities, and may be one of the most significant touch points keeping NC State top of mind for thousands of alumni every single day.

 

We know there is a better path available. As committed, loyal, and supportive alumni, and for the long-term good of the University and the entire Wolfpack family, we implore the University to work with Google to negotiate a better solution.  

 

Footnotes: 

(1) Based on a cost of 87¢/year/account—which is in-line with the pricing Boston University recently paid for their analogous Google email & apps storage contract—and an individual time burden of 2-15 hours (annual) to migrate a primary email and Google Apps account to a new service. 

(2) Low- and high-end estimates based on lowest USA minimum wage of $7.25/hr (federal) and and highest USA minimum wage $16.10 (Washington DC)

(3) Assumes 7 emails sent per day from 150,000 @ncsu.edu email addresses and a cost to maintain email accounts of 87¢/year/account as compared to a CPM (cost per thousand impressions) of $6.75 (which is in-line with the price of a LinkedIn marketing campaign).  

(4) Source for Google consumer storage pricing: https://one.google.com/about/plans

(5) In a similar case at Boston University, just 345 users accounted for 84% of storage usage. The distribution of storage usage among NCSU users is likely to be similarly uneven. 

(6) Based on BU's reported total annual cost of $171k for 195,000 user accounts.

**Research and composition credit goes to Andrew Schoen**