As a working class student in the age of COVID-19, having to pay for clean clothes while living at college is a quiet health and human rights issue. Many students will need to purchase their own cleaning products, masks, medicine, and other basic health necessities for back to school. Not to mention other back to school items. Is it ethical or moral to charge students $3 just to wash and dry one load of clothing? Which often doesn’t even fully dry the clothing, and that will be exposed to other environments and bacteria?

In such a turbulent time that over thirty five million Americans have filed for unemployment in the past three months, with many simultaneously losing access to health insurance, Westfield State should assure students that they not only will be in clean environments with  sanitizers in each classroom, but will also have healthily and fairly lower prices on laundry and food on campus. To be commiserative towards students in a health crisis is to understand that many students will be unemployed and still independent. Profiting off of a students last 7 dollars so they’ll have clean clothes for a few days is not an act of humility. Considering the student debt we’ll have once we graduate- (a different conversation), it is only fair to create policies that protect your student body from health hazards and financial emergencies.