College Students: Appreciate Free Laundry While You Still Can
It's a blessing students take for granted too often.
I was fortunate that I never had to do my own laundry growing up. Calling me spoiled rotten, but my parents always did my laundry and I appreciated them for that. While I was busy juggling school, work, extracurricular activities and a social life, having clean clothes was one thing I never had to worry about.
When I started college at Michigan State University, it was a bit of an adjustment because I had never done my own laundry. I stuck to Tide Pods because they were easy to use and kept me from overflowing the washing machine with laundry detergent.
My first year at Michigan State University was the first year the college did away with paid laundry facilities. While the coin slot was still attached to the washing machines, we were instructed to wash our clothes as normal and just hit the start button.
I had heard of other universities charging students to wash and dry their clothes so I was grateful that paying for laundry was one less fee I had to worry about; after all, college students are already paying thousands of dollars a year to obtain a degree, why not give them something for free?
Free laundry is an expense most universities can easily afford, and I for one appreciate that luxury immensely.
Since starting college at a university in the United Kingdom as part of my study abroad, I have learned the struggle of paying for laundry. At my university, it costs two pounds and fifty pence to wash clothes (on the cheapest, lowest setting) and one pound and twenty pence to dry them; that is the equivalence of roughly $3.27 to wash clothes and $1.57 to dry them.
I will admit, university life at my college in the University Kingdom is much better than in the United States; the people are nicer and I'm just happier. While I miss many people and things at home in the states, I really miss free laundry. I'm already spending enough money on accommodation, tuition and credits - paying for laundry is one added expense that I'm tired of paying.
I understand that universities probably lose out on a lot of money from offering free laundry, but it is a luxury that I and I'm sure every student who has free laundry is very grateful for. While we're stressing about homework, exams and balancing life in general, we can relax at the thought that we can wash and dry our clothes as much as we want and when we want without digging for change in our pockets or swiping our debit card.
