New Ricoh Pro C 5100S in a college environment, Postscript or Fiery?

We are about to purchase the above and wonder whether Fiery is a step to far for our College that only prints internally and only 5,000 copies per month. We also have an Epson 9700 that I print to via the College networks servers, would I be using a RIP for this? As you will realise, I am a novice at the moment. Thanks for any comments.