Clean clothes, empty wallet
$1.25 per wash, $1.25 per dry. That’s if you swipe your ID. Pay with quarters, and you’re at $1.50 for each cycle. As a full time college student, my budget is low enough as it is. Whether it’s groceries, toiletries, or basic necessities, my money is constantly flowing outward, and then I realize that I have an unnecessary expense to pay: laundry.
Some may look at paying for laundry in college as a way for students to manage money. The way I see it, is that it’s a way to screw them out of it. I do not find myself managing my money ahead of time, but rather completely stressing out when I realize that I only have $0.40 worth of points left and cannot afford to dry my clothes.
Personally, when I do laundry here, I have to throw in two loads, considering that my towels essentially fill their own washer here. Washing and drying two loads of laundry costs me at least $5. If I do this every two weeks, then I would be at $10 a month just for laundry.
This price does not seem like a lot, but it adds up overtime if you are shelling out $5 every time you wash and dry your clothes. For the 2018-2019 academic year at RWU, the price of living alone ranges from the lowest cost at $8,454 for a standard room in a traditional residence hall, to the highest at $13,438 for a private apartment in Bayside or North Campus Residence Hall. I find it hard to fathom how these immense prices do not cover student laundry fees.
The nuisance of paying for laundry also comes to my attention considering that all of my friends have the same complaints. If they are out of Unicard points or do not have any quarters left, then they have no way to wash their clothes, and struggle to figure out where they are going to get money to do so.
Additionally, there are students who do laundry way more than I do, who are surely losing even more money than I am. According to a 2014 article from The University Daily Kansan, students at the University of Kansas, where it costs $1.50 to wash and $1.50 to dry, spend at least $9 to $12 on laundry per week. That is absolutely crazy to me. If I had to do this much laundry every week, as I’m sure some Roger students do, then I would be completely broke.
Maybe this sounds like a personal problem, and you think that paying for laundry is not really a hassle at all. But when I go to see my friends at schools where students don’t pay for laundry, I think about the $10 a month that I’m losing, and wish that RWU would follow their lead.
