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College admissions are competitive, and not just from the student’s side. Sure, sometimes it’s hard to get into the college of your choice, but the schools are fighting just as hard to lure in top applicants. While some colleges boast about class sizes, graduate fellowships, and endowment growth rates, this sort of info is likely to bore the 17-year-old students they’re wooing. Instead, some schools try to come up with unique perks that appeal to students, often in the form of free services.
While the cost of these “free” perks is undoubtedly built back into tuition bills, when a family’s spending upwards of $40,000 a year for school, it can’t hurt to help them feel like they’re getting something for nothing. Here are a few you might be jealous of:
1. Free Laundry
Nothing’s more maddening for a college student than wanting to study, party, or sleep, only to be confronted with a massive mound of laundry. Most of us know that if left unchecked, these piles of dirty clothes can grow until they’re on the brink of becoming sentient beings, but students at Davidson, an elite liberal arts college in North Carolina, don’t have to worry about it. Their college does the laundry for them.
Since 1919, Davidson has been operating a laundry facility that allows students to drop off their laundry and pick it up once its clean and smelling of dryer sheets. At the Lula Bell Houston Laundry, students’ dress shirts and blouses are even pressed and put on hangers for them. The laundry clears about six tons’ worth of dirty clothes and linens a week, but if students prefer to keep their filthy t-shirts to themselves, the school also offers free self-service washers and dryers in the dorms.
As if that’s not enough, Davidson was even more generous when its basketball team made a miraculous run to the NCAA’s Sweet 16 last March. The school shelled out the cash for free bus transport to the venue in Detroit, two nights’ lodging, and a free ticket to the game for any student who wanted to go cheer on their Cinderella in person.
2. Free Skiing
Michigan Technological University offers a pretty standard slate of majors for its students, but it also has a real estate holding that might lure in applicants. The school owns Mont Ripley, a ski slope on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. While normal lift-ticket prices run at around $35 a day, Michigan Tech students can hit the slopes without dropping a dime.
3. Free Computers
At my undergrad alma mater, Wake Forest, one of the chief perks is that when you showed up for freshman orientation, the school gives you a fully loaded IBM Thinkpad and a printer. Students keep this laptop for two years, then trade it in for a new model before their junior year. Students then take this one with them when they graduate.
While there was a downside to the system (if profs know everyone has a laptop, they’re not the least bit shy about making you tote it to class), it really upped the on-campus computing efficiency. Any program you needed for a class was already loaded on the laptop, and since everyone on campus was operating one of only two types of machines, tech support could diagnose problems and fix them really quickly.
4. Free Theater Tickets
Nothing irks actors and theater owners quite so much as playing to an empty house, so if tickets are moving slowly, why not fill the seats with college students? NYU’s Ticket Central can wrangle Broadway and Off-Broadway tickets for up to 75% off their face values, but sometimes, the school can get lucky students into theaters for free to help fill otherwise thin crowds. Ticket Central also boasts that it can get students into Knicks games for as little as $12 and into Mets games for just $3. Of course, the way those teams have played in the last year or so, that offer might scare off more prospective students than it entices.
5. Personalized Birthday Cakes
College birthdays are often all sorts of debauched fun, but at least in my experience, they were often sorely lacking in quality cake. Sure, sometimes you’d get a pan full of Betty Crocker-ed good intentions cooked in a dorm oven, which are precisely calibrated to burn cakes’ edges while leaving the center liquid, but it was rare to see a real birthday cake. Ohio University’s dining services can fix that, though, by allowing students’ parents to join the Birthday Club. For $18, parents can make sure their kid gets a personalize birthday cake and all of the plates, napkins, and forks they’ll need to share it with their friends. [Note: The cake pictured above is not the work of Ohio University's dining services. It's from Cake Wrecks, with this caption: "Here we have a beautifully done blue horse. Unfortunately, it was supposed to be a blue house."]
6. Cheap Golf
College students who want to golf on a tight budget often have to resign themselves to finding the rattiest municipal course they can find and hoping they survive the ordeal. Students at Stanford, though, have access to the Stanford Golf Course, a legendary course that’s hosted such greats as Tom Watson and Tiger Woods since it opened in 1930. Only students, alumni, faculty, and their guests can enjoy the course’s picturesque views of San Francisco, and for guests the price is pretty steep, up to $110 a round. Students, though, get a great deal on greens fees; they can get in a full round for just $25.
What unique perks did your school offer?
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Comments (48)
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I went to Wheaton College in Norton, MA (NOT the really religious one in IL! Ours was the original!!)
In any case, on my 19th birthday during my sophomore year my mom was bummed out that my birthday was on a Wednesday and surrounded by exams & papers. We weren’t going to celebrate for at least 2 weeks which gave me a “what’s the point” sort of attitude about it. She called the dining hall and they agreed to make me a personal cake decorated however she wanted for no cost. They even arranged for another student to pick it up so I could be surprised! It was really sweet. Also, laundry is now free at Wheaton. You still have to do it yourself but we managed to work out a more environmentally friendly, cheaper system during my junior year. Not having to scrounge for quarters was liberating!
posted by Bri on 2-26-2009 at 1:23 pm
At my college, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, the Sophomore on-campus suites offered free weekly maid service to keep the new facility in good shape. They didn’t do laundry, but they cleaned the kitchen, bathroom and living room.
posted by Sean on 2-26-2009 at 1:46 pm
My college offered free…um nothing.
posted by Norkio on 2-26-2009 at 2:06 pm
My college offers free laptops to all incoming freshmen with at least a 3.0 GPA. The only stipulation is you have to attend for a full year to be allowed to keep them.
The other nice thing they offer on campus is a 24 hour computer lab, and free fitness classes (martial arts, pilates, zoomba)
posted by Korin on 2-26-2009 at 2:08 pm
Sacred Heart University has a laptop program too (I’m a junior there). They now let students choose between a Mac and an IBM Thinkpad. They used to only offer Macs for majors that required it (ex: graphic design).
posted by Laura on 2-26-2009 at 2:10 pm
I got a free “commuter” breakfast once a month if I woke up on time. A donut and a cup of coffee for the 4-5 years I was in college.
That was about it… except for free fitness center access but most big colleges offer that anyways.
posted by Christopher on 2-26-2009 at 3:13 pm
Like Sean, my campus (University of Tampa in Florida – ahem, NOT USF thank you) had cleaning services for all the on-campus dorms and suites.
They also ran a service during the weeks leading up to exams where parents could order care packages filled with energy snacks, caffeine-spiked instant beverages, and other goodies to be delivered during stress time.
But my favorite perk won’t kick in for a few more years. Any UT graduate can hold a wedding reception in one of the three ballroom spaces FOR FREE. Considering the main building was built in the 1890s as a luxury hotel, that’s a pretty swank deal.
posted by Chelsea on 2-26-2009 at 3:17 pm
Hmmmmm… I went to Michigan Technological University (’07 graduate) and I never knew about the free skiing. The lack of money always kept me from tackling the slope. Now, I’m bummed.
posted by Nate on 2-26-2009 at 3:38 pm
Nate, that’s too bad that you missed out on the skiing! Mount Ripley was great!
posted by Ophelia on 2-26-2009 at 3:52 pm
Yeah, when I went to Michigan Tech (03 grad)skiing wasn’t free, but season passes were only ~$200…
posted by Garrett on 2-26-2009 at 3:56 pm
My alma mater was very generous. They gave out free receipts with every $300 book you purchased.
Then you only had 2 weeks to return the book for full value. After that you had to settle for the book buy-back price – about 5% to 10% of the purchase cost. (If you’re gonna drop better do it right away.)
posted by n2y2 on 2-26-2009 at 4:11 pm
I go to Ohio University- the cake is good… i can vouch for that!!
posted by Blair on 2-26-2009 at 4:14 pm
Interestingly enough, Northern Michigan University also participates in the IBM/Lenovo thinkpad program for students and faculty. However, art and design students get an Apple Macbook to use for two years rather than the IBM/Lenovo. Additionally, the campus has free wireless and wired ports for usage and several off campus wireless towers as well.
posted by MK on 2-26-2009 at 4:51 pm
My school offers free Wi-Fi, but they have a perk that is worth more than free laundry and cakes: career services. Someone will help you write your resume and cover letters, and even help arrange interviews. And it’s offered for life to graduates.
posted by Amy D on 2-26-2009 at 5:02 pm
I wonder how many of these perks are “free” or simply paid through by fees tacked onto tuition. The “free” things at my college (newspaper, fitness center, etc) were tacked on as fees, although still cheap in the long run.
My school (LSU) did offer football tickets incredibly cheap. Considering that the average season ticket holder pays $700-$1,200 for their seats, student tickets for $35/season was amazing. All other sporting events were free with school id.
And one night during finals each semester, the dining halls held a midnight pancake breakfast.
posted by Lindsey on 2-26-2009 at 5:17 pm
My college gave me this free advice–nothing in life is free. Ironic ReCaptcha–$1.50 Mollie
posted by Judy on 2-26-2009 at 5:43 pm
I wish my college had offered free laptops. However, I don’t think laptops were invented back then. ;-)
posted by Angela on 2-26-2009 at 5:47 pm
Forget cheap golf, Syracuse lets you play for free at the University owned, private course and lends you clubs for free!
posted by Sean on 2-26-2009 at 6:41 pm
At San Jose State, they offered free bus passes for the VTA and a free t-shirt if you joined the Spartan Squad.
posted by Andrea Moy on 2-26-2009 at 7:25 pm
I went to school at UW-Eau Claire, and the cost of rental textbooks was covered in our tuition – so you could call it “free” books, I guess. Saved a ton of money that way.
posted by AnneF on 2-26-2009 at 7:40 pm
My alma mater, Southeast Missouri State University, offers textbook rental. It’s about $18 per book per semester ($12 when I went there). You have the option to buy if you like, and there are some supplemental books to buy for some courses, but I paid more for books in my first semester of graduate school than I did in four years at Southeast.
Also, the laundry is free in the residence halls – no quarters, tokens, or cards required.
posted by Dustin Fritsche on 2-26-2009 at 7:42 pm
Belmont University in Nashville, TN offers free self-service laundry. It was definitely an incentive to do laundry more frequently and probably one of the reasons very few students come to class in their pajamas.
It’s also very common for upperclassmen who moved off campus to appear in the laundry rooms (though it’s posted that this isn’t allowed) in the evenings taking advantage of the one thing they enjoyed about living on campus.
posted by Melody on 2-26-2009 at 7:58 pm
Here at Eastern Illinois University we have textbook rental as well. $9 a credit hour, which is pretty awesome compared to buying books and trying to sell them back.
We also have free Finals Feasts. The Sunday night before finals, you can go to two of the dining halls for some awesome free studying food. Served by your housing professionals and faculty. It’s pretty cool.
posted by Kieran on 2-26-2009 at 8:44 pm
George Washington offers free weekly maid service to all freshman dorms. Then again, it is the most expensive school in the country.
Our school offers the cake option too. There is just one problem: they taste like sponges here.
My college (American University) has a thing for free t-shirts. I haven’t even finished my freshman year, and I’ve already picked up twenty or so. For a while, they also offered free Napster downloading, but Napster discontinued the deal. We also get discounts to a lot of sporting events (Nationals, Wizards, DC United, or Capitols for $10).
posted by Julia on 2-26-2009 at 8:50 pm
Bryn Mawr College is so proud of its free laundry that most of the tour guides point it out to prospective students. I didn’t really understand what the big deal was until I was forced to pay $2.50 a load! The biggest problem with the laundry was always that people’s boyfriends figured out that they could come in and do it for free, too.
The big freebie, though, is the lantern everyone gets each year in their class color. The perk to going to a school with crazy old traditions is that you get something really memorable out of freshman year.
It almost makes up for the pile of student loans I’m sitting on!
posted by Elisha on 2-26-2009 at 9:21 pm
Ohio Northern University, my alma mater, used to offer free prescription drugs from the student health center. We were (and still are) a major Pharmacy school, and as a result, it was an added perk. No longer, though. We also got free copies of the latest Windows operating system and latest version of Microsoft Office.
posted by Harry on 2-26-2009 at 10:15 pm
At Mount Holyoke College, we were served free milk and cookies every school night (sunday-thursday). It’s always abbreviated M&Cs. There was a different kind of cookies/pastries each night. My favorite was either the Magic Cookie Bar or the chocolate cupcakes. And during exams, they gave us 24-hour M&Cs, with extra stuff like pitas and hummus. All free. Mount Holyoke is the best.
posted by Casey on 2-26-2009 at 10:40 pm
Seton Hall University also gives out free computers as well.
posted by Andrew on 2-26-2009 at 11:49 pm
At Duke, we can get into any major sports event for free, including basketball games. Be jealous. We also get free printing, career services for life, wi-fi, and t-shirts at nearly every event. We also have Midnight Breakfast once a semester. It’s exactly what it sounds like. Some freshman classes got free ipods as well, but ours didn’t. During finals week, we also got free coffee and soda. Of course, what do you expect for more than 50,000 dollars in tuition per year?
posted by H on 2-27-2009 at 12:29 am
I went to Davidson (’02) and I promise you, the laundry thing wasn’t that cool. Yes, it came out of our tuition, and no, we couldn’t opt out (I tried — I felt weird about people folding my undies). I believe the laundry deal was a hold over from when Davidson was an all-male college — boys, evidently, can’t be trusted to do their own laundry. But it was an institution and the ladies of the laundry really were very nice!
posted by linda on 2-27-2009 at 7:56 am
I went to Rose-Hulman. We too had maid service in the dorms. They even changed the sheets weekly. And would stack up your lose change if you left it sprawled all over your desk.
Sometimes I miss college… then I remember it was the professors goal to make sure the students never slept.
posted by Amy on 2-27-2009 at 7:56 am
Ha! I think Linda might be my hallmate! Hi there. Laundry was a cool perk, actually, and it was not, as noted “free” but it was nice when you got really busy and just needed clean towels.
posted by Nikki on 2-27-2009 at 8:37 am
I would kill for the free laptops. But, I did get accepted to Stanford, so I’ll get cheap access to the Stanford Golf Course pretty soon.
But still, I want the free laptops. And the free laundry.
posted by Danielle on 2-27-2009 at 9:00 am
At my alma mater, the United States Naval Academy, nearly everything is “free.” In fact, they pay you to attend and give you a job – no, an adventure – when you graduate. :-)
posted by Sarah K on 2-27-2009 at 9:05 am
I went to Wichita State and they have the recreation center/gym that is free for students to use and the career services office that helps with resume writing, practice interviews and job postings. They also have a pretty good Co-op program where you can work and get college credit.
Also, when I was going there (don’t know if it is the same now or not) conferences were a big thing. So I got to travel all over the US going to conferences presenting papers or just attending other sessions. All on the University dime. I met some great people on these conferences and learned a lot. I still request my employer to support my attendance at one conference a year.
posted by Michelle on 2-27-2009 at 9:30 am
I went to Louisiana State University, and like Lindsey I must saying cheap football tickets was the BIGGEST perk. We’re very school spirited here. I graduated last year though and students now pay about $135.00 for season tickets rather than $35.00.
posted by Kaitlyn on 2-27-2009 at 9:51 am
I went to Xavier University in Cincinnati, and although we were a very small school, we had nearly all the free perks mentioned above (minus the skiing, for obvious reasons, and the laptops). Maid service, laundry, midnight snacks, care packages, cakes…
it was great :)
posted by Brooke on 2-27-2009 at 9:58 am
St. John’s University also has the laptop program. In addition, as part of their DNY course, every freshman gets a free ticket to a Broadway show.
posted by Andréa Fernandes on 2-28-2009 at 4:42 am
The University of Georgia does finals week Care Packages, too. Tickets to the Georgia GymDogs are $2 a meet, the LadyDogs basketball games are free, and football tickets are $6 a game. I think you can get married at the Chapel and the GA Center for a small fee; I certainly saw a bunch of bridal parties walking around campus on Saturdays! You know, when it wasn’t Game Day…
posted by Tamsyn on 3-3-2009 at 9:48 am
Cottey College is a small women’s college with just over 300 students. The size means they can offer perks others don’t. Sure, we have maid service and a five-star chef (I promise it’s the best campus food you will ever eat) and each student lives in apartment-style suites. But the trump card is that Cottey sends the entire senior class to Europe on Spring Break. This week they have been in Rome and Florence, Italy. Past trips have included Madrid, London, and Paris. What other school sends you to Europe free?
posted by Terri on 3-15-2009 at 9:00 am
@Terri: for a school like that, I’m sure the tuition is enormous!
My school, College of the Ozarks, has the best perk of all – free tuition. Students work fifteen hours a week. This gives you one of the perks mentioned; you can send your laundry to the campus laundry and get it done for you if you want (I usually remove my underwear from the basket first).
We also can go on free trips. Any trip offered by the college is free for students (you only have to pay for your passport and spending money). I went with the agriculture department to England and Ireland last year. The best way to go on trips though is with one of the music groups; they go to Europe at least every other year.
So ha! Free tuition, free laundry, and free trips!
posted by Kate H. on 4-15-2009 at 12:00 pm
[...] may be an exception in extravagance, other colleges do seem to be tiptoeing in its pearly wake. Mental Floss reports that things like free laundry and ski passes, personalized birthday cakes, reduced [...]
posted by College Neverland: Valet Parking, Ice Cream Trucks and Wake-up Calls | Money Launch My Kid on 6-27-2009 at 9:55 am
I know that MSU charged .75 per load for laundry.
No free golf, no free anything.
Oh wait we did get free frostbite!
posted by Charity Golf on 6-30-2009 at 6:32 am
The skiing sounds good and so does the Golf. But the laundry is probably the biggest benefit to anyone who is really trying to get an education. I can remember many days going to the basement to find some idiot had removed all my clothes and thrown them out on a filthy table because they couldn’t wait 2 minutes for me to return.
posted by Conversion Vans on 7-30-2009 at 5:37 pm
Clearly many of these perks are “free” or really simply paid through by fees added onto your tuition. Nothing in life is ever really free. That what my mother taught me…
posted by diet blog on 8-14-2009 at 3:07 pm
I like the free computer strategy, I think few colleges do that, my brother goes to a christian college, giving free laptops is the last thing they would do for students
posted by Electric Bicycles on 8-21-2009 at 9:16 pm
What a great post. That really brings back memories. I would trade a lot of the perks I have today for a buttload of free skiing.
posted by webgirl on 11-3-2009 at 3:38 pm
At Loyola University New Orleans you get one \get out of jail free\ card. The school will bail you out of jail and provide you with a lawyer once in your four years at school.
posted by Anna on 11-4-2009 at 8:10 pm