Why pay and pollute twice for heat and drying when you can just pay and pollute once?

Because the questioner is talking about a communal college laundry room, where it is unsafe to leave one's clothes. Who has 6 hours to burn every time something needs to be washed?

Hey, Chelsea,
Is that you?? It's Matt Auerbach from Gunn! Is this your comment? Whether it is or not, great question!
-Matt

If you had read the entire question as well as the article, you would have noticed that the student is looking for something for which her SCHOOL will pay. In that case, 82 feet of drying space for $230 when the school installs, pays, and monitors is not such a bad idea at all. Please don't jump on Umbra's case for a crime she hasn't committed!

Unless you're willing to spend your Friday night mad money on sweat-shopped/3rd World produced clothing to replace the ones that "walk away" while drying, why not just dry your clothes in your own dorm room? And maybe the college would consider installing the lower cost retractables in all the rooms?

If the college is willing to install communal drying racks, it may well get more line-length for the dollar by designing a sort that fits the space. It would probably be much more difficult to convince them to fork over $20 x n dorm rooms (plus all the maintenance/replacement costs).
One of the maintenance guys might feel inspired by such a project (particularly as it would permanently enter the college folklore  as "Joe's stretcher").  

Chelsea didn't say the college would "monitor" the drying racks. And therein lies the rub, doesn't it?
Problems ranging from people who forget to take their dry sheets away until the ones on their bed are (more than) ready to be washed, to those who confuse drying lines with boutiques need to be addressed by the users, rather than by spy cameras or laundry-police.

What's needed is some sort of social organization among dorm-mates. Maybe just a sign-up list, or a sheet where the person whose laundry is hung up writes her/his name and room number.
If they can do that (and why not: students organize for all sorts of things?), they'll be well on their way to creating a much happier dorm society.  

And Chelsea, who's already gotten college approval for this project, is well on her way, it seems! (Brava!)

I was born in '48 and remember having a fold-up wooden rack that was about big enuf for a small load of clothes but washers were smaller back then...I'm also old enuf to have seen wringer washers and even mangle-type dryers that u could press sheets nice and crisp as well as put nice pleats in all ur pants

Gee...am I really that OLD...I still FEEL as YOUNG as kids my SON's AGE !!!  

with college dorm use in mind...maybe the RA/dorm parent/college could finance buying several portable racks that could be loaned/signed out to individual students on an 'as needed' basis...that would eliminate the problem with theft or a permanent fixture 'growing legs'...a signup/checkout system would insure knowing the locations of however many racks where acquired...the number available would vary depending on the size of the dorm...the timeframe would have to be reasonably short (like no more than 12-24 hrs to keep the racks 'in motion' and eliminate having to buy a rack for each dorm room...putting retractable racks in each room would be a more expensive route but might be a better option as long as they used 'commercial grade' racks 'cuz we all know how rough college students can be on the fixtures/contents of their dorm rooms !!!      

RE: personal drying racks
Survey started with 2 yard sale treasures, wooden contraptions that left a few stains on white clothes and then cracked and turned into pick up sticks.  Replaced with new $40 wooden rack, which cracked on 10th use. Replaced with metal folding rack and retractable clothesline now up to 50 days of service and counting.

Low humidity days are on my radar now (cheap thrills are the secret of happiness.) When the air is dry and over 45oF, and I can get the clothes hung early... yeaaaaaa!!  
If you live in the lovely, rainy Northwest, not recommended to leave clothes really wet  overnight, or to dry more than one or two items inside unless windows are wide open, because mildew needs scant invitation.    

Thank you for shrinking your carbon footprint and not your clothes!
 

You only really need clothespins for outdoor lines: indoor lines can have things draped over them, just as you would on a rack.  Although you can hang more things if you can be bothered with the clothespins, I usually can't be!

This is a great idea! Years ago I was happy to have access to communal outdoor clotheslines in university family housing. I saved a lot of money using them. However, one thing that aggravated me was that people would often leave their laundry up long after it was dry. Since it takes several hours for laundry to line-dry, this meant that only one batch was dried that day.  The efficiency of air-drying is limited to begin with. Inconsiderate use can limit it even further.