A cost almost all on-campus students used to be accustomed to was having to pay to do laundry. Starting this year, Keene State College no longer makes its on-campus students pay individually each time they do a load of laundry.
Instead, tuition was raised, making laundry paid for in advance. What they didn’t take into consideration is the trouble that would come with putting these changes in place.
The best email I got all summer was when KSC told its students that on-campus students no longer have to pay for laundry. Taking care of the payments ahead of time gets rid of the hassle of making sure there is enough money on your card each time you want to do laundry.
Unfortunately, there is not an open washer every time I go to do laundry and oftentimes when there are no washers open, there are no dryers either.
Sure, when one building shares four washers and five dryers (in this case Pondside One) this could happen, but evidently I am not the only one who hates paying for laundry, because students off-campus were coming into the dorms to join in on doing laundry for free.
In an email sent from my residence director for Pondside One, Courtney Fisk, said “I am emailing you to inform you that the laundry systems in our area are only for Pondside residents. Any students who allow visitors, which are non-Pondside residents, to do their laundry will be documented.”
This was perfectly acceptable to me; I hate waiting to do my laundry, especially when it’s because students who don’t pay to live on campus are using the machines.
“When residents are unable to use machines because persons in other buildings are using the machines this is concerning,” Fisk added.
I get it, like I said before — free laundry is an awesome thing.
In my opinion, it really should be free even for off-campus houses, considering the amount rent is.
But is it really worth risking getting in trouble by walking all your dirty laundry to a friend’s dorm, and waiting for it to finish? Your loose change is more valuable than you might think. Saving that little handful of loose change every day doesn’t seem like much, but it could turn into you not having to walk to a dorm to clean your clothes!
Cyrus Lyons can be contacted at clyons@keene-equinox.com
Editors note: The Equinox recognizes that laundry is not free, but pre-paid as part of room and board.
