Laundry free for all residents this fall

By Ben Circelli
Senior Staff Writer
April 26, 2006

Never again will students at La Salle complain that doing laundry at school is too expensive. Beginning in the fall of 2006, all resident students of the University will have use of washers and dryers around campus free of charge.

This fall, laundry will be free for all resident students. Photo taken by Sara Allen.

This new policy will be in effect for North and South Campus, the Townhouses, La Salle Apartments and Teresa Court.

The cashless system allows the students to do their laundry with the push of a button, with no need for coins or Gold Card. This change will save students a great deal of money, considering it currently costs $1.25 to wash a load of laundry, and another $1.25 to dry.

Director of Administrative Services Jeff Hershberger explained that this was one way in which the University could increase its added value services.

“Since the laundry contract was up for renewal this summer, we wanted to work out a deal that would help out everyone, including the students,” he said.

Business Affairs also decided that they would not charge students any additional fees in tuition next year, keeping the already slated tuition increase to only four percent. La Salle is absorbing the cost for the 2006-2007 school year, when free laundry will be added to the room and board fees in fall of 2007.

In addition to allowing laundry to be done free of charge, La Salle is also planning on replacing one-third to one-half of the laundry equipment before next year begins. By fall of 2007, all laundry equipment will be brand new.

All students seem to be impressed by this new venture, especially those who are planning on living on campus next year.

Sophomore Kristina Agbayani, who currently lives in St. Basil and will live in Teresa Court next year, was pleased to learn that laundry will be free.

“Not only will it be nice to do my laundry for free, but it’s going to be so much better with new machines,” she said. “Each load is so expensive, and a majority of the people I know do more than one load. When a load doesn’t wash or dry right, though, it costs extra money to do the same load twice.”

Junior Townhouse resident Alessia Kline agrees.

“You have to do numerous loads, which costs more money and takes up more time. With free laundry, it won’t seem as bad if it takes all day to do it,” she said.

Installing new, free laundry machines may even cause more students to stay on campus during the weekends.

“I usually go home on the weekends to do my laundry because of the cost and quality of the machines here. Now that I know it will be free and the machines are fixed, I will probably stick around more often next year,” Kline said.

The outdated technology was yet another reason why the University wanted to make the laundry free of charge.

“Most students were using their Gold Card to operate the machines, and we were always facing the problem of having to go and fix the machines on a regular basis in order to make them work again,” Hershberger said. “Now, the service will be more seamless.”

circellib1@lasalle.edu