University Adds Condoms to Dorm Vending Machines Because It's 'the Most Convenient Place to Have Condoms Located

Chips, candy bars, licorice and maybe a pack of gum are among the goodies found in most college campus vending machines, but students attending the University of Michigan this fall will find wrapped but completely non-edible item alongside these treats -- condoms.

The University of Michigan will charge $1 for condoms from vending machines on campus. (Photo: Shutterstock.com)

According to the AnnArbor.com, condoms are returning to campus vending machines for the fall semester after being taken out for the summer because children use the dorms for camps.

The condoms were initially added in the spring after administrators answered a student request for them. AnnArbor.com reported the head of the university's housing communications department, Peter Logan, said students had initially been asking for dispensers in dorm bathrooms. Instead of bathrooms though, it was decided the contraceptives would be put into regular vending machines to be sold for $1 each.

The university already offers them for no charge at its health clinic.

"A lot of dorms hold freshmen and sophomores ... who were having sex on the weekends and didn't have access to condoms," junior public policy major Carly Manes, who helped push for the easier access to condoms, told AnnArbor.com. "If that's where you're having sex, that's the most convenient place to have condoms located."

The vending machines will make it easier for students and help cut down on people thinking "'All right, just this one time without contraception,'" Manes said, because "it's kind of uncomfortable to knock on a stranger's door and ask for condoms."

The University of Michigan is by no means the first to bring condoms to vending machines or specific dispensers to campus. To name a few, Lynchburg College is adding condom vending machines for fall 2013 as well, and Tufts University got them in January. Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania even offers Plan B through a vending machine.

Late last year, high schools in Pennsylvania considered bringing dispensers on campus.

Featured image via Lissandra Melo/Shutterstock.com. 

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