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October 09, 2008, 03:28 PM ET
Iowa State U. Will Make Students Pay to Set Up Land Lines
The Gazette, a newspaper serving the area around Cedar Rapids and Iowa City, recently ran a story about a new policy at Iowa State University: The institution will make students pay to have land-line telephones hooked up in their rooms. Given the triumph of cellphones, we would have thought that this was old news. Certainly, colleges used to bring in some money by providing students with telephone service, but that source of revenue dried up years ago. In fact, it costs money just to hook up the phone.
“Beginning next year, ISU will turn off phone service in dorm rooms and students who want it will have to pay to hook it up,” The Gazette reports. “ISU’s Department of Residence will put the $700,000 in annual savings toward installing wireless in all rooms, at a cost of $6 million to $9 million. Students support the move, officials said. A survey last year revealed 62 percent of ISU students never use a land line phone in their room, and 96 percent had cellphones.”
The article notes that some colleges, like Luther College and Grinnell College, still provide land lines for emergencies. But a Chronicle story found that land lines were ineffective for delivering emergency information.
We’d be interested in hearing whether your institution is cutting off land lines. —Scott Carlson
Categories: Student-Life, Gadgets
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