COLLEGE students are used to getting ripped off. Between housing, parking andtextbooks, it seems like we are always being asked to empty our pockets. These exorbitant prices, though, are to be expected. The high prices of other goods around Grounds are much more offensive. This exploitation can be seen in the recent price increase at on Grounds laundromats, but that's not the only example. The University should set prices back at cost and stop taking advantage of first years who have no other options.
Compared to last year, it now costs an extra 75 cents to wash and dry a load of laundry on-Grounds. It may seem petty to complain about such a meager increase, but if that cost is applied to the entire school year, it adds up to a significant amount of money.
According to Caldwell and Gregory, the company which provides laundry services for on Grounds housing, the price charged for those services is a mutual decision between the company and housing. The housing office, which could not be reached for comment after multiple phone calls, needs to make sure that the price set for laundry covers just those costs. Since the price jumped suddenly this summer, it seems that the new price must cover more than just costs. After all, the old prices must have supplied enough revenue last year.
If the price of laundry pays for more than the cost of operating the laundromats, it must be paying for some other housing costs. These costs ought to be applied to the cost of living on Grounds instead of being paid for through another means. This would ensure that the cost of housing is not misrepresented to incoming students and that the cost is distributed amongst all upper-class students rather than just the ones without the means to find other options.
Laundry prices are not the only ones to increase over the summer. My fellow caffeine addicts may have noticed that soda machines on Grounds are now charging 10 cents more than last year. Again, this is a small change, but it is nonetheless significant. Not only does it require a student who doesn't have Cavalier Advantage to carry around dimes, but it also adds just a little bit more to an already expensive price. It should be noted that the Pepsi machine on the Corner, which sells the exact same products as the one on Grounds, asks for 35 cents less.
High prices at retailers on Grounds have always been a point of contention. Convenience stores like Crossroads or C3 often charge much more than other convenience stores for the same items. The justification always given by dining is that students are paying extra for the convenience of shopping very close to home. This may be true for students with other options, but for first-years without cars, it is difficult to support that argument. Going somewhere other than dorms is not merely inconvenient, it is nearly impossible. Such a practice also singles out those students living on Grounds who do not have cars, since it costs them more in terms of time and effort to get to another store. Many of these students are undoubtedly the least able to afford higher prices.
Regardless of where this money is going, it is clearly not related to the cost of running a convenience store, since other stores charge less and make a profit. Wherever the money is going, there must be a more appropriate source for those funds.
Housing and dining both take advantage of having an essentially captive group of students as customers. Both organizations do a fine job of meeting those students' needs and should be appreciated more than they are. However, they need to make sure that they are charging fair prices. In a perfect world, they should try to provide those items at or near cost. Charging high prices in order to make a larger profit is ludicrous given the amount of money students are already paying to attend the University. If prices are increasing while costs stay constant or if prices are higher than at other stores, it is obvious that prices are not near cost or even trying to remain so.
Of course, asking the University to provide goods and services at cost is probably too optimistic. The least they could do, however, is to offer competitive prices where they currently do not, and to avoid unnecessary price increases where they do.
Daniel Colbert is a Cavalier Daily Opinion columnist. He can be reached at dcolbert@cavalierdaily.com.
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