...All your parents' appliances, to college, that is:
As students take more appliances and gadgets to school, colleges are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to upgrade electrical systems. The costs are often recouped by increasing room rates...
''What's happening today on college campuses is as we renovate buildings we are having to double or triple the electrical service to student rooms,'' [WSU director of residence services Dan] Bertsos said. ''Instead of having five or 10 amps to a room, you've got 20 or 30.''....
The average freshman at Miami University takes 18 appliances to campus, according to a March survey by the school. As part of a $7 million renovation of one dorm, Ogden Hall, the university spent $212,548 in 2000 to add building substations, electrical distribution panels and electrical outlets...
''Kids used to come to college with an AM radio and an electric razor. Now they arrive with every electronic device there is,'' said [TCU's] Roger Fisher, director of residential services. ''They come to campus in a U-Haul, and Dad follows in a Suburban"...
But some officials say higher energy costs, campus expansions, lighting and the addition of computer labs and other energy-eating facilities are more to blame for increased power demand than student appliances. And upgrading electrical systems in new and renovated dorms is often required by law under newer, more demanding building safety codes.
Andrew Matthews, of the Association of College and University Housing Officers-International, said many dorms were built in the 1950s and 1960s and don't have the electrical capacity for power-dependent students.
I'm still angry (and sweaty) about the fact that, as late as 1986, there were un-airconditioned dorms at the University of (Sweltering, Humid, Sticky) South Carolina. And yep, I was in one of 'em. In case you were ever wondering what could be worse than a hangover, that would be a hangover when you're stuck in a shoebox of an "historic" dorm room with no AC when it's 105 degrees outside with the humidity index. Bleargh.
(Via the Cranky Professor.)
Posted by kswygert at November 25, 2003 01:36 PM