Ohio University students pay $3.25 to wash and dry a single load of laundry on campus, which is almost double the average cost of seven other universities located in the state.
Executive Director of Residential Housing Peter Trentacoste, an OU employee since July 2012, said laundry prices at OU have remained the same in recent years and typically do not escalate every year.
OU has a contract with vender Caldwell & Gregory LLC that was established in July 2009 and is set to expire in four years.
“We don’t own the washers and dryers or maintain them,” Trentacoste said. “They maintain the laundry machines if they break, and they repair them as necessary.”
Caldwell & Gregory agreed to pay OU 50 percent of all revenue up to $580,000 and 80 percent of all revenue more than $580,000 annually, according to the contract.
“I would say about 80 percent of college campuses have vending contracts,” Trentacoste said.
Ohio State University and Miami University have contracts with ASI Campus Laundry Solutions. Both OSU and Miami charge students $1.50 to wash aload, $0.50 less than what OU charges. To dry a load, OSU charges $1, while Miami charges $1.25, the same price as OU.
Miami University also has a weekly “Student Laundry Service” that provides students with a laundry bag that can hold up to 20 pounds of laundry. Miami then washes, dries and folds the laundry for students and delivers the laundry to their residence hall rooms for $339 per semester.Rather than having students pay each time they do laundry, Bowling Green State University has all students pay a $50 laundry fee to wash and dry their clothes all semester.
“The laundry fee is included in students’ housing fee and it is a flat rate each semester,” said Simone Jackson, desk clerk at the Residence Life Office at Bowling Green. “Students can do as much laundry as they want when they pay for housing.”
Trentacoste said Residential Housing at OU hasn’t discussed having a similar set cost for laundry services.
“Some students don’t do their laundry here, so that would be a nuisance if they paid the cost,” he said. “If we would make the switch, we would want student feedback, but as of now, we have not considered that proposal.”
As far as the lowest costing laundry services in Ohio, the University of Akron doesn’t charge students to wash or dry their clothes.
“Within our distribution of fees, as far as the breakdown, there is no fee that is specifically for laundry,” said Dave Pestian, a student assistant at the Office of Residence Life and Housing at the University of Akron.
Trentacoste said OU has never compared the cost of its laundry services to those at other institutions in the state or laundromats in Athens.
“I haven’t done the analysis,” he said. “I’m not sure that we are competing with others, but it is much more inconvenient if you have to go downtown.”
bc822010@ohiou.edu
