I recently read an article on CNN about college perks that students on various campuses are getting (you can read the article here). I was amazed at some of the free things that universities are giving to their students! The best perk that I had while I was in school was the fact that there was a Chipotle close to where the inter-campus shuttle dropped us off. Just as the title of the article suggests, these perks make me a little jealous.

Students at Davidson College in North Carolina get free laundry. That’s pretty nice, but nothing spectacular. The fact that they gone their laundry done for them is what’s amazing. They just drop their laundry off at the Lula Bell Houston Laundry (yes, that’s really what it’s called) and come pick up their clothes washed, dried, pressed, and hung.

Michigan Technological University owns Mont Ripley, a ski resort in northern Michigan. Students, of course, get to ride for free. Even in the Midwest, lift tickets can cause thirty or forty bucks (I wish I would have known about this university before I made my decision!).

New York’s prestigious University, NYU offers its students many things that other universities do not. A lesser-known thing that they offer is really cheap Broadway tickets. Up to 75 percent off. 75 percent! If you like theatre (and can get into NYU . . . which is a little more difficult than being a theatre connoisseur), this is the place to go. Ticket Central, the university box office, even says that it can get free tickets every once in a while. How awesome is that?

Ohio University allows parents to pay eighteen bucks to send a personalized birthday cake to their kids when it’s their birthday. Free birthday cake . . . enough said.

Golfing is one of the more expensive sports that you can pick up; it gets especially difficult as a college student with a limited income. If you’re going to Stanford, though, you can play the Stanford Golf Course for $25, a fantastic deal, considering that the course is nationally-known for being of very high quality. Does anyone else find it ironic that Stanford, which charged $48,000 for a full year’s tuition last year, is offering cheap golf?

Not every school is going to have perks like these, but many schools will treat their students to free or reduced-price things. Now that I’ve read about these schools and their college perks, I’m curious about yours. Maybe things like this have become more common, now that students need to be paying close attention to the value that they’re getting from their tuition. Leave a comment on this blog post and let us all know what kinds of perks you get at your school, or if you know of any other awesome freebies that people are getting.

As always, if you have any questions, comments or funny stories you'd like me to share about college or the blog, email me at stu@stuvu.com