Mordechai Treiger | Keeping quarters out of the picture

Business Services executive director Doug Berger would not fare well in the current election. He spent his entire summer working against change.

"In the day-to-day life of being a student, [change] shouldn't be one of the things you're really worrying about," he declared.

So he eliminated quarters from every laundry machine on campus - but not everybody is happy with the switch.

"I wish they'd refund me for the four years those machines ate my quarters," said Sharon Volotzky, who tragically graduated from Wharton just months before the switch to free laundry. (Forget Lehman Brothers: You know the economy is in trouble when Wharton grads are forced to beg for quarters.)

Jokes aside, there are serious concerns as well. It sometimes seems college students will do anything for free, and that could quickly add up to a lot of detergent, energy and water literally washed down the drain.

Increased usage could also lead to more maintenance problems, especially if students are no longer motivated by a desire to retrieve their dollar twenty-five.

So is convenience worth the price of progress?

Berger certainly thinks so. He says that when Princeton switched to free laundry 10 years ago, their machines sustained considerably less damage from angry students attempting to retrieve quarters and from frugal ones trying to stuff everything they owned into a single cycle. Additionally, just upward of 540 laundry machines operate on Penn's campus; not having to deal with all those quarters makes everybody's job easier.

And it isn't much of an issue from an environmental perspective either.

"I don't think it's an environmental problem," said Environmental Studies professor Robert Giegengack. "We'll all be better off if the students are cleaner."

Both analyses assume that even if laundry doesn't cost quarters, it's still a pain and a half to get it done.

That's probably right: College sophomore Eric Dein predicted, "I'll be just as lazy and do laundry the same amount."

But Penn has so far committed to only two years of quarter-free washing, and if it doesn't work out as planned, there's no reason the switch can't be undone.

"In essence, it's sort of a pilot," said Business Services spokeswoman Barbara-Lea Kruger. "Nothing's totally set in stone." She explained that administrators will collect laundry-usage data to evaluate the effectiveness of the new laundry regime.

In other words, if usage goes up, or Facilities has to deal with unnecessary maintenance problems, there's a good chance you could find yourself paying like it's 2007.

Let's not kid ourselves. At the end of the day, laundry money will come out of students' pockets, whether they pay an up-front laundry fee or each time they wash a load. But it would be somewhat tragic if usage and maintenance-related issues spiked and quarters made a comeback.

The good news is there are easy things everybody can do to keep Facilities happy and quarters out. My editor asked me to avoid turning this into a self-help column, so forget helping yourselves - I'm going to help you:

 Wash full loads - but not so full that the washing machines break down - so there isn't an enormous spike in use.

 Use high-efficiency detergent in the proper amount so your clothes get clean after one go-around.

 Clean the lint filter so you only have to dry your clothes once.

 Consider washing your clothes cold. Heating water uses a lot of energy, and the lower their costs, the more lenient administrators are likely to be. And it works just as well: Just ask your darks.

Paying for laundry doesn't have to be a zero-sum proposition; everybody wins when George Washington loses. That's some change we can all believe in.

Mordechai Treiger is a College junior from Seattle and can be reached at treiger@dailypennsylvanian.com. Fridays with Mordi appears on alternating Fridays.

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.