Established 1826 — Oldest College Newspaper West of the Alleghenies

New laundry service removes students from a critical part of college: Learning

The following piece, written by the editorial editors, reflects the majority opinion of the editorial board.

As sure as pizza will become a cornerstone of their diets and their natural clocks will be thrown off by all-nighters, college students will learn to do their laundry.

It's an age-old lesson driven by persistent mothers, insisting you separate lights from darks; uncles at Thanksgiving tables, threatening that you'll have to wear your limited pairs of underwear inside out; and mature individuals.

At least that's how it used to be. This ritual is now under fire.

A service at Miami allows students to have their laundry washed, folded and delivered to their dorm rooms by university employees - all for the thrifty price of $718 a year.

The fact that students are willing to pay that much money to have their laundry done is obscene. $718 is a huge deal. Students work to pay for their groceries, their car payments and their rent. So to see that someone pays over $500 to have their laundry done because they don't know how to separate their colors probably pisses people off.

Also, the laundry rooms are closed when this is happening, which creates an annoyance for the students who actually do their laundry.

One of the reasons students find the service so appealing is because it saves them precious time out of their weeks.

Let's get one thing straight: the longest part of doing your laundry is folding it. And most students will not even do that. The 40-plus minutes waiting for your clothes to wash and dry is even the perfect time to get some homework or reading done.

The need for a laundry service is fueled not by students' lack of time, but by the idea that they just don't want to do it themselves. Contrary to what college should be promoting, this creates a privileged narrative - that you shouldn't have to do something simply because you don't want to.

Another (worse) reason is that they simply never learned to do their laundry.

It's true, many students could have never been taught how. Their parents may have worked multiple jobs or they could have been acting as a parent themselves.

There are certain things students come to college not knowing, but they're never going to be in a place where everyone is on a similar learning curve.

Students should spend this time learning how to do their taxes, how to cook and how to build their credit.

All that in mind, laundry is not the hardest thing that you have to do.

If students can write 12-page research papers, secure an internship or manage to balance 20 credit hours with extra-curricular activities and a social life, they can learn to wash and dry their clothes.

Everything that students do at college is a learning experience. Whether you are a representative in Associated Student Government, a budding lawyer for the mock trial team or a learning journalist for this very publication - you are practicing for what will happen in real life.

So why should the rest of your college career, even mundane tasks like washing your own clothes, be any different?