2008 Woodie Awards
Letter to the Editor
Flate rate fee for laundry is not desirable
Michael Tucker
Issue date: 2/25/08 Section: Opinion
I am writing to address the student body with my concerns regarding CUSA Resolution 01-28-09e: "approve the recommendation to adopt Resolution 08-01 requesting that a laundry fee be a flat rate within student housing fee starting in the 2009-2010 academic year."
The minutes from the meeting where this resolution was adopted indicate that this decision was made based on the CUSA Survey sent out earlier this year. Based on the Survey Results posted on CUSA's website, I find no evidence that the "students prefer that laundry would be paid for in tuition." The issue of laundry appears twice on that survey, once in the summarized open comment section and once under the current CUSA issues (Mac-Gray contract negotiation), but there are no quantitative results presented.
My concern is that many students do not realize the true cost of adopting such a program. I gather that the popular conception is that because you would no longer actively be feeding money into the machines, whether in the form of cash or on the Knight Card, that the laundry is effectively free.
While it is true that your student aid will cover a portion of the cost, this is student aid that is being diverted from your other educational expenses. The money is still ultimately coming out of your pockets whether you pay for the laundry up front or otherwise.
A flat rate fee means that you will pay the same fee for laundry, regardless of how frequently you do laundry. This means that many people will be paying more than they currently do in order to cover the expenses generated by people who will then be paying less than their fair share. This plan would also open up the door to the greater Potsdam community to swing by Clarkson and toss its dirty clothes into its machines at your expense.
This fee would also imply that it is required that each student buy into this plan. You will no longer have the option of doing laundry in town where it's less expensive and faster; that is, without paying on top of the amount you have already fed into Clarkson's laundry system. Remember how twice this past year the laundry system experienced technical difficulties and came to a grinding halt? If we had been under the flat-rate fee system, you would have been paying for the right to use those inoperable machines.
The minutes from the meeting where this resolution was adopted indicate that this decision was made based on the CUSA Survey sent out earlier this year. Based on the Survey Results posted on CUSA's website, I find no evidence that the "students prefer that laundry would be paid for in tuition." The issue of laundry appears twice on that survey, once in the summarized open comment section and once under the current CUSA issues (Mac-Gray contract negotiation), but there are no quantitative results presented.
My concern is that many students do not realize the true cost of adopting such a program. I gather that the popular conception is that because you would no longer actively be feeding money into the machines, whether in the form of cash or on the Knight Card, that the laundry is effectively free.
While it is true that your student aid will cover a portion of the cost, this is student aid that is being diverted from your other educational expenses. The money is still ultimately coming out of your pockets whether you pay for the laundry up front or otherwise.
A flat rate fee means that you will pay the same fee for laundry, regardless of how frequently you do laundry. This means that many people will be paying more than they currently do in order to cover the expenses generated by people who will then be paying less than their fair share. This plan would also open up the door to the greater Potsdam community to swing by Clarkson and toss its dirty clothes into its machines at your expense.
This fee would also imply that it is required that each student buy into this plan. You will no longer have the option of doing laundry in town where it's less expensive and faster; that is, without paying on top of the amount you have already fed into Clarkson's laundry system. Remember how twice this past year the laundry system experienced technical difficulties and came to a grinding halt? If we had been under the flat-rate fee system, you would have been paying for the right to use those inoperable machines.
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