Free Storage for All

This Monday, the Undergraduate Council voted to demand that Harvard administrators to cover summer storage fees for all students, regardless of House. Currently, Houses that have undergone renovations (such as Quincy House) will no longer provide free storage options in-House during the summer, as storage space has made way for student lounges and conference rooms. Leverett will also stop offering free storage starting in 2015 as McKinlock Hall finishes its current renovations. The College should recognize the financial difficulties faced by college students and do all it can to minimize these costs for students, rather than increase them.

While we acknowledge that Harvard has taken some steps to alleviate the financial costs for students, there are several significant drawbacks. Although Quincy will be providing additional furniture in rooms, including tables, chairs and sofas in an attempt to reduce the number of large items that require storing over the summer, this new arrangement makes no accommodation for students who have already invested in furniture and will lose the place to store it. Additionally, it limits the student’s ability to personalize their living space—their home-away-from-home on campus. Harvard has also decided to offer students a slight discount for storage through the company Collegeboxes. A standard “Collegebox,” which measures in at 24-by-18-by-16 inches, costs $45 without the discount. Considering the amount of bulky winter gear that most students at Harvard require during the school year, it is easy to see how the price of storage through Collegeboxes can quickly become burdensome for many students. A Quincy student estimated that the cost per student could be at least $150 dollars.

Given that the housing lottery is intended to make the upperclassmen living experience fair for all, the new stance the College is taking on summer storage undercuts the lottery’s purpose. Expecting solely the residents of Quincy and Leverett to pay out-of-pocket for storage expenses is simply not egalitarian. Although the administration may argue that they are simply in the process of phasing out summer storage, they should not discount the experiences of students who have to live through this transitional stage. In the interest of equity among students, Harvard should either provide free storage to all students or to none.

As UC president Gus Mayopoulos pointed out, given that President Drew Faust rejected the UC's earlier proposal for increased student activity funding on the grounds that she did not want to increase costs for students, this move on the part of the College seems inconsistent. The University should either make arrangements for greater financial aid for storage purposes or make accommodations for free storage to continue.