On-campus laundry: A dirty scheme?

Photo credit wikimedia commons

Photo credit wikimedia commons

By Dean De Lucia, Staff Writer

Do you ever wonder why our school makes us pay for our laundry? Because I definitely do. After talking to many of my friends from other schools, I have noticed that Gettysburg College requires their students to pay the most money for laundry. There are many expenses that need to be paid when attending college, but paying for laundry should not be one of them.

There are two ways to look at paying for our laundry: one can look at it as another way to manage money and time, while other people see it as a waste of money and something that should be taken care of by the school.

Students have many other responsibilities that need to be worried about, and, quite frankly, worrying about whether they have enough quarters or money on their swipe card should not be one of them. Laundry is a hassle as it is. You need to get the detergent, the dryer sheets, bring the laundry down the stairs, wait for other laundry machines to finish and then finally bring the laundry back upstairs. If there were enough laundry machines, then paying for our laundry might not seem as bad because although we have to pay, we are still able to get our laundry done without waiting. The fact that there are limited machines and that we have to pay $1.50 per load is absurd.

Our laundry situation is not helping students manage their time; in fact, it is messing up their time management. When students find a time during the day when they can do their laundry they then have to check if any machines are open and then make sure they can even pay for it. If none are open they either have to wait the amount of time on the machine or move it to another day. In this situation, students already had plans as to what they were going to accomplish during the time their laundry was getting washed. Since it has to be pushed back they need to decide what they are going to do instead of laundry.

The money that college students have or make is to be used for food, school and in case of an emergency. If students keep losing money to a laundry machine, they will not be able to buy food and they may not have enough money for school materials or events.

Laundry on our campus is another way for students to lose more money. College students in our nation already have issues with money as it is. Having to scrape up change or ask their parents to put money on their swipe card is just causing more stress and worry. If our campus took away the charge on laundry, students would have one less thing to worry about, and it would make their financial lives easier. If lowering the price is not a possibility, then our school should add more machines where there are more open spots to do laundry. This would create less waiting and more opportunity to work on managing time.

Author: Web Editor

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