Leaving the nest...

Sometimes, as I'm walking through a dorm hallway, I'll see a tough canvas bag with a name and room number label sewn into it. I know then that either a concerned parent, or a coddled student, purchased a ridiculously expensive laundry service plan from an outside company. The company provides you with a bag, and you fill it with a set amount of laundry (a certain number of shirts, several pants, several pieces of underwear, depending on the plan) and leave it outside your door. Someone from the company picks it up, and depending on the services you purchase, wash, dry, and press your clothes. Your clothes are returned to your dorm, and left in front of your door.

I guess I can understand why some people may purchase these plans for hundreds of dollars every term. They want their kid to focus on studying. Having done their children's laundry since the day they were born, they are worried that their poor, vulnerable children will sink in the brutal world that is the college dorm laundry room.

I can understand these concerns, but neither I nor my family could justify these laundry service plans. Cost was a pretty big factor–each use of a college washer or dryer set me back a mere $1.25. Assuming that I had a lot of clothes, and wanted separate light and dark clothing, I paid roughly $5.00 per laundry session. Assuming that I did laundry once every week for each week of my 10 week term, my clothing laundry costs did not exceed $50 dollars. Add in some laundry sessions for sheets, towels, etc. and my total laundry costs set me back a mere $60. This certainly compares favorably with the $400-600 that a laundry service would have charged.

But more broadly, unless there's a compelling reason for doing so (maybe a student goes through sportswear like underwear), parents do a disservice to their children if they hire a laundry service for college. I think budding college students need to step up and do their own laundry. Children eventually become adults with their own households and their own children. As a parent, you don't want their cherished "first time" doing laundry to be in front of a newly purchased machine in a newly rented apartment. Washing your own clothing is a sign of living independently. And isn't that was college is all about?