It appears the university is offering a real deal

Many universities promise first-year students a residence space and they fulfil that promise by screwing students.

If you’ve attended an Ontario university, you may have been in a double or triple room which was originally designed as a single or double. Sure, the university may throw in a gimmick like a “free” mini-fridge or mini-tv rental, but there still making a tidy profit by charging three students each at say 60 – 75% of the per-student rate when it was a double or single.

Having been the victim of blatant false advertising in my first year of university, I’m extremely cynical when it comes to residence claims.

So, when I heard that CKCO (CTV SW Ont) had a story about how Wilfrid Laurier is dealing with their residence shortage, I had to tune in to hear the spin.

Turns out there is no spin from the university and they are actually being very good about their residence shortage.

Yes, they are converting single rooms into doubles and I’m not a big fan of this.

However, they are not forcing anyone into those rooms and are offer real incentives for people to volunteer for the rooms. They are charging students in these rooms 50% of the single rate, meaning the university is taking no profit from the situation. Further, the university is giving each student a free laptop. Probably not the best, but it’s good to have a laptop with nothing on it but a word processing and Firefox.

That’s enough to impress me and earn my stamp of acceptance (which is quite the achievement), then upon looking further into it (I was trying to find the catch) I discovered the deal gets better.

They are putting these students in their new residence and have purchased new bunk-beds to do it. This means new mattress! Having stayed in residences, I know what the mattresses are like. Hell, they didn’t even have to throw in the laptop – a new mattress is priceless.

This isn’t the first time WLU has offered incentives, WIRED notes the same thing in 2003.