A simple task turns tough in QU laundry rooms
Laundry is one of those unavoidable tasks that should be straightforward for college students: throw in a load, wait, and fold. But for students at Quincy University, getting laundry done is anything but simple. Limited resources and crowded laundry rooms are creating a perfect storm of frustration.
In most residence halls, only three washers and dryers serve each side of the dorm, leaving about 50 students sharing a total of six machines. The math doesn’t work in students’ favor.
“Sometimes I walk down all four flights of stairs just to put laundry in,” Jai Williams said. “Then I find all of the machines are taken. I have to walk back upstairs and just wait for someone to finish.”
This lack of machines has left students with little choice but to strategize carefully, often waiting until late hours or sacrificing their schedules to grab a machine. And with QU’s recent growth in enrollment, the issue is only worsening.
Students like Reggie Thomas believe the university has the resources to add more washers and dryers, especially with the continued expansion of the campus population.
“I think the school has enough money to get more washers and dryers,” Thomas said. “We only have three, and there are so many people in this building. Adding more is really the only way to solve this.”
Despite these concerns, the university has not implemented changes or upgrades to the laundry facilities. For many students, the waiting game continues each semester, leading to mounting frustrations and wasted time.
As QU continues to expand, these issues may only grow, prompting many to wonder when the administration will take action. A bigger campus inevitably means more students in residence halls, and for students like Jai Williams and Reggie Thomas, more washers and dryers would go a long way in alleviating this shared struggle.
For now, QU students will have to keep navigating the laundry room’s crowded and often chaotic environment—a reality for thousands of college students nationwide, but one that QU students hope won’t last forever.
