Some University of Michigan students are cleaning up their acts in more ways than one.
They are getting $100 cash payments for keeping their dorm rooms presentable and opening their doors so prospective students and their parents can take a look during campus visits.
Among the 18 students participating in the tour program are sophomores Aaron Bennick and Eric Romain, engineering majors who have loft beds that fit over their desks, a clean beige love seat with light-blue pillows, two refrigerators and a bookcase filled with laundry supplies and food.
“Last semester, the room was not as neat,” Bennick said. “My dad asked me if I was sure I was going to be able to do this.”
Participants must let tour groups see their room in the middle of the day, and have to be out of bed and dressed, said Randi Johnson, the university’s housing outreach coordinator. Display of anything illegal, offensive or banned is forbidden.
The program is not available to everybody who wants in. Roommates Natalie Wowk and Adele Coehlo applied to be in the program but say they never got a response.
“They probably thought no amount of money could improve this room,” Coehlo said.