PSU pulls plug on dorm land lines

Anne Danahy

Land-line telephones in Penn State dorms are going the way of party lines and rotary dials.

The university is disconnecting the telephone lines in its almost 50 residence hall buildings. Students, it seems, hardly use them anymore, opting instead for their cell phones.

And pulling the plug will save the university about $800,000 a year.

Chad Henning, assistant director of housing, said the university began looking into ending land lines two to three years ago, an effort that included gathering information about what other universities are doing and talking with residence hall student government.

According to Penn State, market research firm Student Monitor found that 90 percent of college students have cell phones. And most students don’t use a land line. At Penn State, 72 percent of students made fewer than 20 calls on the land-line phones in 2007-08.

The university stopped providing the phones a number of years ago, leaving it up to students to decide whether they wanted land lines.

But Penn State isn’t letting go of the past completely. The university is installing courtesy phones in dorm hallways so students can make local calls, call 911 and use calling cards to dial long distance.

“Some of them are going back in the same locations where they were a long time ago,” Henning said.

Residence assistants will still have land lines, as will housing designed for families.

Other universities, including the University of Florida and the University of Nebraska, have already scrapped their land lines.

But for those who still like them, Penn State can reactivate a dorm room line.

Anne Danahy can be reached at 231-4648.