Colleges dropping student landlines

It may not seem like a big deal that many American colleges are considering scrapping landline phone service into student housing — after all, research shows that at least 90% of students in most colleges now have cellphones — but it actually presents a financial problem for the schools. American University in Washington, D.C., for example, used to take in hundreds of thousands of dollars in phone fees; last year, it brought in just over $1,000. According to the Washington Post, schools like AU are finding that it's now more cost-effective to either ditch their student landlines altogether, or just put a few phones in hallways, rather than maintaining their aging systems. For the handful of students still without cellphones, it looks like it's time to start saving those quarters.