Should dorms have free laundry services?

Photo courtesy: Tide

Doing your laundry is one of those essential tasks that keeps your clothes well maintained and looking fresh when you go out into the world. Having a nice clean set of clothes can do more than just enhance your appearance — it can also boost self confidence and increase productivity.

Students who live on campus have immediate access to laundry services. This solves one problem, but it also presents another.

Florida A&M University has been heavily criticized about of later how it handles student housing situations, one of which is the laundry services. Students who wish to utilize these services are being charged to do so. Some view this as wrong and dub it a “cash grab” as some students are not as fortunate as others to keep spending money on things that they must do in order to live a normal life.

“The accumulation of conducting laundry services in on-campus housing can weigh a toll on students financially considering they must also be able to provide for their nutrition, well being, as well as pay for other extracurriculars hosted by the school,” Kimani Peterson, a pre-physical therapy student from Jacksonville, said. “It places a strain on the student making them unable to provide for these things and thus lessens their appreciation for the university.”

Laundry services consist of access to washers and dryers that are installed in every on-campus housing facility. They are placed in a common room and are to be shared with every student who lives there making it a scarcity as there are many students who live in any one residence hall.

FAMU Towers, FAMU’s newest co-ed dormitory, houses roughly 700 students.

The cost of washing is $1.75 while the cost of drying is $1.50, so cleaning a single full load of clothes would total $3.25. In addition to that the washers and dryers are relatively small forcing students to have to wash multiple loads at a time.

“The washers at FAMU don’t even completely fill with water. There’s been plenty of times I got my clothes out of the washer and some were completely dry or a Tide pod didn’t get enough water to fully dissolve,” said Savion Johnson, a second year graphic design major.

Facing these predicaments has prompted some students to use local off campus laundromats as a more cost efficient method. The nearest local laundromat, Orange Ave Coin Laundry, has multiple larger washing and drying machines that effectively clean clothes in just one wash. The cost of a single full load of clothes here would total $5.25  allowing students to cut down on how frequently they wash as well as cutting down on monthly costs.

Despite this issue students haven’t fully given up on on-campus laundry services. Some are hopeful that there will be some changes to resolve this issue. Many have made suggestions to FAMU’s Student Government Association, which acts as the voice between students and the administration as a means to mediate this issue. One of the popular suggestions is to include laundry services in the housing costs.

“I think they should take action by advocating that students should not be paying for laundry services,” said Nathan Price, a third-year information technology student. “I feel a small increase in tuition would suffice if it meant that laundry services campus-wide would be free. ”