Laundry price increase raises concerns among students

The David Dorm laundry room is in the basement.

Photo credit: Elizabeth Salo

By Elizabeth Salo

Co-Managing Editor

The price of on-campus laundry increased by 25 cents per cycle at the beginning of the school year, and some students are not happy.

School officials understand their concerns but said Concordia is locked into a contract for the service.

The price per laundry cycle last year was $1.50, and at the beginning of this school year it went up to $1.75, which junior Allie Hassler said is unfair for a hygienic necessity.

“The laundry prices going up just seems a little unfair,” Hassler said. “If anything, [maybe they should] up the price on something else that we might use more, I guess, and seems more fair for us to pay more on.  We shouldn’t have to pay that much to keep up good hygiene.”

Junior Richard Peperkorn said that the increase has caused budgeting problems.

“That little change in laundry prices adds up at the end of the year, and when you’re trying to budget for things,” Peperkorn said.  “Half the time, when you have a washer and dryer, they don’t actually dry the stuff, and it can be very irritating for a student who keeps to a tight schedule.”

Laundry is offered to Concordia students through a contracted company, Jetz, that controls the price.

“On the Jetz contract, we originally signed it in 2019, and it just had an escalator written into it,” said Morganne Schreiner, Concordia’s chief financial officer.                                              

“In 2019, laundry prices were $1.25 per load, and then contractually it went up to a $1.50 in 2023, so we haven’t had an increase in three years.”

Schreiner said that the administration understands the price concern and is researching options to make laundry free or at least cheaper for students, but they are not ready to release any specific information at this time, since they are so early in the process.

“I have some ideas, but I’m not ready to share this at large yet,” said Schreiner. 

“We’re working with Student Senate to sort of vet some ideas. At the end of the day, the laundry machines do bring a little bit of revenue—not much—but the idea is how do we replace that revenue for the university as a whole.”

Schreiner said that laundry came up frequently in the student survey last year, so administration is actively looking at the issue.

“We take students’ feedback very seriously, so it raised to the top of being an item we should look at,” Schreiner said. “We’re just starting to get into our cadence, so it’s at the very beginning of all of the ideation of it. But we are trying to address the issue because it was one of those, it came up in the student survey and then there was the mandatory rate increase.”

Students such as junior Mitchell Stephens are understanding but still don’t like the increase. “I know the school doesn’t control it, I know it’s the company outside, but I don’t like having to pay more,” said Stephens.

Sophomore Emma Fiala suggested that perhaps laundry should be treated like other things on campus that students receive a stipend for, like students’ printing stipend.

“They already charge us an arm and a leg for room and board, right? Why can’t there be some sort of laundry stipend included with that?” said Fiala.  “We have a printing stipend; we have Bulldog Bucks for coffee.  Could we use Bulldog Bucks for laundry?”