Campus ID News
Card, mobile credential, payment and security
FEATURED
PARTNERS
slider LaundryHistory 1

Campus laundry: A brief history

Andrew Hudson   ||   Feb 16, 2017  ||   ,

While laundry isn’t typically seen as a life-saving service, it does – like any superhero – have an origin story. Campus card industry consultant, Robert Huber, has seen campus laundry evolve to reflect changing college life.

“At the onset of campus laundry, most campuses used coins, re-usable or single-use tokens, and rechargeable or throw away cards,” Huber says.

The days of coin payment are for the most part behind us – and for good reason. “At that time, institutions deployed labor-intensive change machines either in each laundry room or for security reasons in the residence hall lobby,” Huber recalls. “This meant that front desks had to keep lots of change handy – again, a security risk and a labor intensive process.”

Whether done by the university, a laundry machine contractor, or a third-party coin collector, the single greatest problem with coin-based devices is the collection process.

“Reconciliation of coins has always been laborious and requires auditing and verification that the cash retrieved matches the transactions,” explains Huber. And, of course, pilferage was a concern and vandalism of coin-laden machines was not uncommon.

As an alternative, many campuses opted to add a thin magnetic stripe, often called a vending or junk stripe, to their campus card to enable offline stored value payments. This allowed them to utilize the student ID card instead of requiring students to carry a dedicated laundry card, Huber says. “But this strategy necessitated the purchase and secure mounting of cash-to-card machines for the secondary stripe,” he adds.

Cash-to-card machines that required the acceptance of bills posed an increased security risk of break-ins wherever the machines were located, and carried hefty cash-handling expenses, Huber explains. These eventually were replaced by or complemented with automatic debit machines that facilitate revalue using credit or debit card.

As another alternative, campuses began incorporating laundry payments into the “flex” account program. This alleviated some of the security concerns and increased profitability, and added another valuable utility to the student flex account.

There were also growing pains in the wiring of laundry machines. “If the patch cord running between the reader and the washer wasn’t engineered properly to the individual machine, then sometimes the water would fail to shut off, causing floods in the laundry room,” says Huber. “In the mid 1980s, many washing machine brands were different and campus personnel had to custom engineer readers for each brand. Vendors soon took notice and began selling laundry controllers.”

In the years since, many campuses continued to accept both cash and electronic forms of payment. As a standard practice today, however, Huber sees little reason to maintain antiquated methods.

“I would recommend accepting only electronic forms of payment – campus card or bankcard – thus eliminating all forms of cash in residence hall laundries,” Huber explains. “This reduces the security vulnerability of not only the machines, but more importantly, the residents as well.”

|| TAGS:
Subscribe to our weekly newsletter

RECENT POSTS

May 26, 23 / ,

Penn State adds mobile ordering to campus app

Penn State has added a mobile ordering feature to its comprehensive campus mobile app, Penn State Go. The Penn State Eats Mobile function is available for use by students on the flagship University Park campus, as well as across the university's Commonwealth Campuses.
May 26, 23 / ,

NAU leverages delivery robots to support late-night dining

Northern Arizona is leveraging Starship delivery robots and the mobile ordering app in a clever way to prop up late night dining, and putting a twist on the ghost kitchen concept. The university has launched its Hole in the Wall dining window that now serves either pickup or robot delivery for students by offering a number of dining concepts all from a single, concession-style window.
May 25, 23 / ,

HID's Technology Partner Program helps companies develop mobile solutions

Trusted identity solutions provider, HID Global, has announced its HID Origo Technology Partner Program, the company’s first program dedicated to partners with a focus on mobile technologies. The Origo Technology Partner Program is designed to help technology partners by providing the ideal platform for organizations to design, test, and market products that integrate with HID Origo via APIs and SDKs.
CIDN logo reversed
The only publication dedicated to the use of campus cards, mobile credentials, identity and security technology in the education market. CampusIDNews – formerly CR80News – has served more than 6,500 subscribers for more than two decades.
Twitter

Join us, @NACCUorg, and @TouchNet to explore how campus card programs can successfully navigate the sales and procurement process. Join the webinar on June 6, 2 pm EDT. https://go.touchnet.com/l/652093/2022-05-18/lsndq

Webinar: Learn how the University of Arizona uses campus cards, mobile ordering, kiosks, lockers, and robots to revolutionize campus dining. April 7, 2-2:30 EDT. Register Now at https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/7821245544009488910?source=campus-id

Load More...
Contact
CampusIDNews is published by AVISIAN Publishing
315 E. Georgia St.
Tallahassee, FL 32301
www.AVISIAN.com[email protected]
Use our contact form to submit tips, corrections, or questions to our team.
©2023 CampusIDNews. All rights reserved.