The UA provides free laundry for undergraduate dorms from Feb. 26 to March 28
$15,000 of the UA’s discretionary fund was spent for month-long free laundry service
Vivian Hir–The Tech
On Feb. 25, Undergraduate Association (UA) President Enoch Ellis ’26 and Vice President Rishika Bansal ’26 emailed the MIT undergraduate community announcing that laundry in undergraduate dormitories would be free from Feb. 26 to March 28. Currently, more than 3,500 undergraduates, or 78% of the student population, live in a dorm. The UA spent $15,000 of its discretionary fund for the month-long free laundry service. The discretionary fund comes from the UA reserves account, which has an annual budget of $400,232 for the 2024-2025 academic year.
The UA free laundry initiative
Ellis was inspired to launch the free laundry initiative after noticing a common trend of free laundry from his discussions with other student body presidents across the country. “I was thinking about ways to give back to students in a tangible way,” Ellis said to The Tech. Although Ellis acknowledged that free laundry for the entire year was not viable, his calculations revealed that it was possible for the UA to implement a month-long free laundry service for undergraduate dorms.
Based on historical data from Housing and Residential Services (HRS), Ellis estimated that the average student does two loads of laundry per month; one load includes washing and drying, which comes out to $2.50 per load. Therefore, this would mean around $5 per individual for the month, resulting in a cost around $18,000, given that there are around 3,500 undergraduates who use the Institute’s laundry services. “Considering that this is less than 5% of our internal budget and less than 4% of our reserves (which otherwise wouldn’t be used), we knew that there was ample money for this initiative,” Ellis wrote in a statement to The Tech.
As a result, Ellis proposed free laundry at the Feb. 19 UA council meeting. Given that the spring semester had no new participatory budgeting projects, the UA instead focused on “fulfilling previous winners” from Fall 2024. The winners were six projects that included undergraduate swings and free postage stamps. As a result, the $25,000 allotted for the Spring 2025 participatory budget was to be redirected to other ideas.
One idea that Ellis introduced was using $18,000 of the participatory budget for a month of free laundry for undergraduate dorms, with $5,000 alloted for reimbursements for off-campus and FSILG residents. According to the Feb. 19 meeting minutes, the proposal to use the remaining participatory budget’s money on free laundry did not receive significant support from the council, as council members were overall more supportive of using the money for other initiatives, in particular travel grants, instead of free laundry.
Under the UA financial board (Finboard), the UA travel grant provides up to $1,000 of funding per student to “attend professional or academic conferences.” In Fall 2024, the UA provided $15,000 from its reserves account for travel grants. In the 2023-2024 academic year, the UA had a $55,000 budget for travel grants, which is around 13% of the annual budget. According to Ellis, around 55 to 60 students are recipients of the travel grant per year.
Although the travel grants do benefit students, Ellis argues that they only serve a small percentage of the undergraduate population, around 1.2% (MIT’s undergraduate enrollment is 4,535 for the 2024-2025 academic year). On the other hand, Ellis saw the free laundry idea as a way to benefit the majority of the undergraduate population.
Ellis’s original plan was to reallocate participatory budget funds for free laundry without a council vote. However, council members disagreed, saying that a reallocation should require a vote of the council. UA advisor and SOLE Administrative Assistant Connor Perez later confirmed that if Ellis proceeded with this plan, this would be a violation of Article II, Section A, clause 8 in the UA Constitution. The rule states that a “2/3 vote of the full voting membership of the Council” is required for the reallocation of any of the UA’s financial resources.
As a result, the UA office decided to use $15,000 from the discretionary fund for the free laundry. Whereas allocation of the participatory budget requires a vote from the council, the discretionary fund does not require a vote from the council. The discretionary fund’s budget is decided in the fall semester as part of the overall budget.
The March 5 UA council meeting
Less than a week after the launch of the month-long free laundry period, the UA held another council meeting on March 5. One main discussion topic in the meeting was feedback regarding the decision making process and implementation of the free laundry initiative. A common viewpoint among council members was the desire for more transparency and input on the free laundry initiative, since they did not vote on the decision for discretionary funds to be used for free laundry. Another complaint was that the execution of the initiative was rushed and not well thought-out.
IFC representative Diego Temkin ’26 expressed frustration about the council not being fully informed about the free laundry initiative prior to the email, saying, “We as a council never got info on how you identified a priority.” He added, “What is worse, honestly, is a common comment that ‘this is the most the UA has ever done for me.’” Temkin is a technology staff member of The Tech. He was not involved in the production of this article.
Off-campus representative Olivia Honeycutt ’26 echoed Temkin’s sentiments, as she recommended clearer communication regarding the free laundry email sent to students. “To say ‘if you have a problem, reach out to a representative’ is not very fair when people are upset,” Honeycutt said. “The people who made the decision should have gotten more of the brunt.”
Besides the lack of communication and transparency, council members pointed out the issue of the free laundry initiative not benefitting students who lived in fraternities, sororities, ILGs, grad housing, or off-campus housing. This group of students also includes Random Hall, which provides free laundry for residents. Students who live outside of undergraduate housing constitute 22% of MIT’s undergraduate population.
In the meeting, council members proposed ideas on how to allocate money to living groups that did not benefit from the free laundry. Initial ideas included laundry substitutes such as free menstrual products for sororities and money for laundry machine repairs. A later suggestion was that the UA could give money to each living group, and the living group decides how to spend the money. Another suggestion was to provide each student TechCASH because of its flexibility for spending. Ultimately, the council unanimously approved to use $7,000 from reserves to support laundry needs for off-campus students.
The second vote that council members unanimously approved was the allocation of $40,000 from reserves for travel grants. This added up to a total of $55,000 for the 2024-2025 academic year, reflecting the amount from the past academic year. Although Ellis said the UA negotiated with some MIT departments last semester for departments to provide travel grant funding, the recent financial uncertainties and federal funding cuts motivated Ellis to propose the idea of allocating $40,000 funds for travel grants.
In an interview with The Tech, Ellis acknowledged that the implementation of the free laundry may have “come off as the decision that has been made without having input.” Another piece of feedback that Ellis received from the council was the suggestion that officers ask the council for permission on discretionary funding spending; the reason for this suggestion was that some council members did not approve the UA’s decision to use discretionary funds for free laundry. However, Ellis emphasized that discretionary funding is up to the officers’ discretion, not the council.
On March 11, Ellis proposed a bill for the allocation of the $7,000 for undergraduates who do not use the Institute’s laundry facilities. In the March 19 UA council meeting, Ellis modified the proposed bill for an allocation of $10,000 from reserves instead of the original $7,000. The reason for increasing the amount was that there are approximately 1,000 students who don’t live in undergraduate dorms, meaning that each student should receive $10. The bill passed with 16 yes, and 2 abstentions.
According to the bill, students living in graduate housing or off-campus housing (e.g. apartment rentals) will receive $10 in TechCASH. For undergraduates who belong to living groups that do not use the Institute’s laundry facilities (FSILGs and Random Hall), “the remaining balance of the $7,000 fund shall be allocated on a per capita basis.” In other words, a lump sum will be given to each living group. For accountability purposes, each living group must “submit a usage report to the UA Council within 20 business days of receiving the fund.”
Students’ views on the free laundry initiative
Student responses about the free laundry initiative have been mixed. While many students were happy about the temporary perk, others believed that the money spent on free laundry should have been used for other purposes like club funding or travel grants.
Wesley Smith ’28 considers the free laundry initiative to be beneficial for him as a low-income student because it has “helped alleviate a lot of financial stress.” In the fall semester, Smith reported that he would spend around $10 per week on laundry, as gym and sports practice would require him to do more than one load per week, which meant around $130 for the fall semester.
Although Kate Ellison ’25 acknowledges that the free laundry is meant to help students, she believes that the free laundry initiative has led to a significant increase in the use of washing machines and dryers in the New House laundry room. “Even in the middle of the day on a Tuesday, I had to move someone else’s laundry to dry my clothes,” Ellison said. “It only takes a small number of people to do laundry more often for the laundry room to get super chaotic.”
According to the March 13 DormCon general body meeting minutes, other dorm presidents have also reported that free laundry has caused people to use the laundry machines at a higher rate. As a result, Simmons Hall has experienced an increase in malfunctioning dryers, while McCormick Hall had a washer pouring water out. At the same time, however, Random Hall’s free laundry machines have reported similar issues in the past.
The free laundry initiative has led to campus-wide debate on platforms like dormspam and MIT Confessions regarding how the UA should appropriately allocate funds and whether the free laundry initiative provides tangible benefits for students. Others argued that students not on financial aid did not benefit much from the free laundry, when laundry costs were more likely to affect students on financial aid.
Despite the disagreement among the council and the criticism from some students, Ellis said that overall he has received positive comments regarding the free laundry initiative from students. “[People are] a lot more appreciative of the fact that we were trying to do something that benefited as many people as possible,” he said.
Ellis’s future UA plans
Given that this year is the first time the UA has done participatory budgeting, Ellis plans to implement some changes for the next academic year such that the participatory budget will continue to support student well-being. Although Ellis will not run for reelection, he still plans to be part of the UA in the 2025-2026 academic year. Improvements he suggested include earlier planning, providing more information about what makes a valid proposal, and soliciting student feedback.
“Governance only works if everyone feels informed and people can participate,” Ellis said. “As we look into the future of the UA and the Institute, some decisions have to be made about funding.”