Residential Services will offer free laundry for all residents beginning Fall Quarter.

In the past, students had to use Munch Money or coins to operate campus laundry machines.

The initiative was a collaborative effort between the Residence Hall Association and Residential Services, Residential Services director Paul Riel said.

“The machines would stay the same, but the payment process would no longer be required,” he said. “This is a growing trend on most campuses.”

The fees for laundry are used to repay the company that initially installed the machines in residence halls. Residential Services is discontinuing the maintenance fee, a component of the cost for living in a residence hall, and using the funds generated in previous years from this fee to cover the cost of laundry for the 2014-15 academic year. In the future, Residential Services will cover the cost.

The price of living in a residence hall will decrease because the maintenance fee will not be replaced. Riel said his office was not seeing the value of the maintenance fee.

RHA co-president Andy Niederschulte said Riel initially approached RHA about the idea. Niederschulte and his co-president James Pisano then brought it back to RHA’s General Assembly where the plan was discussed and approved.

“We’re very excited,” the McCormick sophomore said. “It’s just a nice thing that makes living on campus a better and nicer experience.”

Riel said he hopes the program will also serve as an incentive for students to live on campus longer, as he said there has been a small decline in the number of returning students living on campus.

“This is certainly a program that I think may encourage students to stay on campus,” he said. “It’s by no means the only thing we are doing. We are trying to do other things to make the on-campus experience better and to compete with the off-campus market.”

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