Opinion
Wednesday, January 25, 2023 — 9
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

L

ast month, University 
of Michigan President 
Santa Ono revealed the 
University’s plans to construct a 
new undergraduate residence hall 
on Elbel field, which is located 
southeast of the South Quad 
Residence Hall. It will primarily 
house incoming freshmen, with 
a proposed capacity of 2,300 
students. The building’s location 
on Central Campus is intended 
to help alleviate the growing 
demand for on-campus housing 
among students. 
“Demand among students for 
affordable, on-campus housing 
on or near Central Campus 
continues to rise,” said Martino 
Harmon, 
vice 
president 
for 
student life, at a Board of Regents 
meeting. Harmon, among other 
faculty members, are hopeful 
that the addition of the new 
building 
will 
help 
address 
problems of limited housing for 
the University’s growing student 
body. 
With the University continuing 
to 
admit 
record-breaking 
numbers of students, this reaction 
does not adequately contend with 
the scope of the housing problem 
within Ann Arbor. Though much 
of the stagnation in housing 
construction in Ann Arbor is 
the result of city land use policy, 
the University has a golden 
opportunity 
to 
increase 
the 
number and variety of housing 
options available to students. 
Essentially, it’s time to think 
bigger.
The last residence hall for first-
year students at the University 
was constructed in 1963, making 
the addition on Elbel the first 
expansion of freshman housing 
in about six decades. By not 
expanding its housing capacity 
and the variety of offerings, 
the University has left many 
students with no other choice 
than to seek off-campus housing. 
An astonishing 72% of students 
currently live off-campus, where 
they are left to grapple with the 
high rent and limited availability 
of housing in the Ann Arbor area. 
In luxury apartment complexes 
such as Sterling Arbor Blu, rent 
rates can range anywhere from 
$1,694 to $2,644 per month, per 
bedroom. Consequently, the Ann 
Arbor student housing market 
has historically been ranked 
as one of the most expensive in 
the Midwest. Although Elbel is 
a step in the right direction at 
addressing the housing crisis, it 
comes as a temporary solution to 
a deeper-rooted problem. 
The new Elbel Field residence 
hall comes at a time when housing 
in Ann Arbor is as competitive 
as ever. With rent for a studio 
apartment averaging $1,684 a 
month and over two-thirds of 
apartments costing upwards of 
$2,000, many U-M students are 
searching for cheaper housing 
options amid the growing costs. 
This search is often difficult, 
especially for first-year students, 
who have to navigate through 
a competitive and sometimes 

carnivorous housing market for 
the first time. The additional 
rooms and living spaces that the 
dorm on Elbel Field will offer 
for students who choose to stay 
in on-campus housing, however, 
will make the market better even 
for students who choose to live 
off campus. The fact that 2,300 
fewer students will be bidding 
up the price of off-campus 
housing will surely assuage pain 
to renters caused by the supply-
constrained Ann Arbor housing 
market, at least initially. As long 
as the number of the entering 
freshman 
class 
continues 
to 
outpace the construction of new 
housing units, though, the core 
problem will not be solved. 
For the 2022-23 school year, 
the average monthly cost of 
on-campus housing for a double 
room setup is just under $1,300 
dollars (or $15,719 per year). 
Though this cost is cheaper 
than the average Ann Arbor 
apartment, it is still around $600 
greater than the state average. 
And for upperclassmen who 
cannot find a spot in the dorms, 
there are a limited number of 
affordable choices — almost none 
of which are sponsored by the 
University. 
The Ann Arbor Cooperative 
Houses 
are 
an 
inexpensive 
option for housing, but the 
Inter-Cooperative 
Council 
at 
Ann Arbor comprises of just 16 
houses throughout the city. The 
University has a similar option in 
Henderson House, a cooperative 
residence under MHousing that 
offers the social and practical 
amenities of an off-campus house 
and was designed explicitly for 
sophomores, upperclassmen and 
graduate 
students. 
However, 
Henderson House has a capacity 
of just 28 students. This is a living 
situation that could appeal to 
many upperclassmen and could 
be made more affordable than 
dorm-living — as residents are 
responsible for maintaining the 
house — if the University were to 
expand it. 
While 
incoming 
first-year 
students are somewhat sheltered 
from the housing problem, the 
University’s 
growing 
student 
population 
and 
the 
failure 
of 
University 
infrastructure 
to properly respond to it has 
resulted in many sophomores and 
upperclassmen struggling to find 
on-campus living. With roughly 
97% 
of 
incoming 
freshmen 
choosing to live in residence 
halls, accommodation for others 
cannot be guaranteed. Space 
limitations placed the University 
in a difficult spot last fall when 
they had to deny placement 
of more than 2,300 returning 
students in the dorms.
This last figure is perhaps the 
most prescient point of this entire 
discussion; many current off-
campus students want to live on 
campus. Additionally, those who 
don’t want to live on campus as 
a second-year or beyond are not 
averse for reasons of facilities 
or location, but because the 
University can not offer many 
of the intimate and pro-social 
living arrangements found in 
shared houses and apartments. 

Many of the Michigan Learning 
Communities offer this social 
environment — the guarantee of a 
stable community into a student’s 
sophomore year — and see 
students remain in the community 
beyond 
their 
freshman 
year 
at a higher frequency than in 
traditional dorms. Even then, the 
University only offers 10, some 
of which are specialized to an 
academic discipline or require a 
competitive application process. 
This 
is 
not 
unique 
to 
on-campus 
housing 
at 
the 
University 
of 
Michigan. 
Nationwide, 
universities 
have 
heterogeneous 
approaches 
to on-campus housing. From 
traditional dormitory living for 
freshmen, to apartments with 
kitchenettes for upperclassmen, 
there are plenty of ways that the 
University can make on-campus 
housing options more diverse. 
The Stockwell, North Quad and 
Fletcher Residence Halls have 
historically followed this model, 
catering 
their 
offerings 
and 
services to upperclassmen. 
If 
there 
were 
more 
tenable 
on-campus 
options 
for 
upperclassmen, 
such 
as 
university-sponsored cooperative 
houses, more Michigan Learning 
Communities or more on-campus 
apartments for undergraduates, 
students would be able to both 
live with friends while also not 
being subject to the cut-throat 
nature of the Ann Arbor housing 
market. 
A substantial increase in the 
variety and capacity of on-campus 
housing is, of course, a years-long 
endeavor. Nevertheless it is useful 
to set goals for our administrators 
as they consider the University’s 
place within a rapidly changing 
Ann Arbor. The new construction 
on Elbel Field is a good start to 
solving a dire problem and well 
worth the $6.5 million price tag.
Despite 
a 
nationwide 
dip 
in recent years, a near record 
number 
of 
Americans 
are 
attending college. Ever expanding 
application 
pools, 
especially 
to the nation’s most selective 
schools, have proven difficult to 
accommodate. After announcing 
the Elbel Field residence hall, Ono 
explained to The Michigan Daily 
that since 2004, undergraduate 
enrollment at the University has 
grown by 8,000 students.
Universities are not strangers 
to 
capacity 
problems. 
The 
University of California, Berkeley 
notably 
had 
its 
2022-2023 
enrollment temporarily frozen at 
2020-2021 levels after a lawsuit 
from 
environmental 
groups. 
Berkeley’s housing crisis was a 
prime motivator for the freeze. 
Paired 
with 
a 
precipitously 
declining acceptance rate, the 
University of Michigan must 
contend with its place in a 
growing, gentrifying Ann Arbor. 
The University is responsible for 
much of Ann Arbor’s cultural and 
financial wealth, but its presence 
poses unique public challenges. 
Until this reckoning, though, 
the University ought to meet the 
satiable demand of its students: 
a new and varied housing stock 
to meet the needs of a growing 
community.

THE MICHIGAN DAILY
EDITORIAL BOARD

W

e all remember the first 
semester 
of 
college, 
for better or for worse. 
Moving into your dorm, having to 
cope with the pressures of a new city 
without the comfort of hometown 
staples and learning how to live on 
your own. Taking responsibility for 
things that you accepted as givens 
when you were younger is often 
when you realize you’ve become an 
adult. And with adulthood comes 
the non-negotiable responsibility of 
managing expenses.
As any college student knows, 
college expenses are a burdensome 
source of stress. They can eat away 
at your time and mental health. 
But, beyond the obvious line items 
on the semesterly invoice, such 
as tuition or housing rates, many 
students don’t realize the extent of 
the hidden costs tacked onto their 
bill. These include, but are not 
limited to: laundry, food outside of 
the dining halls and other out-of-
pocket necessities that the average 
college frequently fails to make 
obvious for prospective students. 
Once on campus, the most well-
hidden expense quickly becomes 
obvious: laundry. 
When students live in a dorm at 
the University of Michigan, they 
first have to pay for laundry supplies 
such as detergent, fabric softener 
and bleach. Then, they have to pay 
the University (to which they’ve 
already given tens of thousands of 
dollars) for access to the machines 
themselves, a cost never advertised 
during their supposedly “complete” 
tour of the University. The many 
aspects of cleanliness on a college 
campus generate expenses that can 
easily add up, and yet are absolutely 
necessary for a healthy lifestyle. 
Let’s break down the numbers 
for laundry costs. The University 
charges $1.25 per load for washer 
machines and $1 per load for dryer 
machines. 
Boxes 
of 
detergent 
cost anywhere from $5 to $15. 
Meanwhile, the average cost of just 
a single bottle of fabric softener 
usually ranges from $3 to $7. Heavy 
loads may require multiple washes, 
stacking these already high variable 
costs on top of one another. Put 

together, it can be estimated that 
each student pays roughly $90 to 
$200 a year out of their pockets 
to do laundry on campus, with no 
opportunity to cover these costs 
through financial aid.
We 
shouldn’t 
accept 
those 
numbers as inevitable. After all, 
such horrific statistics don’t exist 
at so many other peer institutions 
— many of which the University 
of Michigan is ranked higher than 
in general quality of life metrics. 
Many other colleges have made 
the move to include the use of 
laundry machines in their tuition. 
These include Central Michigan 
University, Grand Valley State 
University and Western Michigan 
University, other colleges in the Big 
Ten such as the University of Illinois 
and the Ohio State University 
and the one school which fits 
both of those criteria: Michigan 
State University. This practice is 
a widespread standard for many 
schools with the University of 
Michigan’s traits because it has 
many 
self-evident 
benefits 
to 
students. Including laundry fees 
in tuition relieves students of a 
deceptively heavy burden, and 
that’s just the start of the positive 
consequences for students.
There are numerous benefits to 
including laundry fees in housing 
costs, both for students and the 
University. By making students 
pay for laundry at the beginning of 
the year, it encourages them to do 
laundry in the future through the 
psychological effect (and economic 
fallacy) known as “sunk cost.” Doing 
laundry improves physical health 
by minimizing chances of sickness. 
Moreover, the removal of the 
pay-per-use barrier will increase 
general 
clothing 
cleanliness, 
enhancing the respectability of 
University students. 
When students no longer have a 
price shoved in their face every time 
they try to wash their belongings, 
they’ll no longer want to messily 
shove all of their laundry into one 
machine to save money. And if their 
clothes don’t get fully dried in one 
load, or a machine malfunctions, 
students will be able to complete 
multiple cycles and fully cleanse 
their clothing without fear of 
further 
unbudgeted 
expenses. 
But it’s not just a matter of making 
the activity of laundry less urgent 
and stressful. Folding laundry 

machine fees into the University’s 
official housing or tuition rates also 
means that hundreds to possibly 
thousands of students would be able 
to pay for laundry with financial aid, 
scholarships and grants. Clearly, 
laundry being part of housing 
rates would benefit all University 
students, especially those who 
struggle with college expenses.
Laundry fees being included 
in housing or tuition rates would 
also be beneficial for universities, 
as it will persuade students to 
live on campus. At the University 
of Michigan, freshmen are not 
required 
to 
live 
on 
campus. 
Therefore, a notable minority of 
first-year students choose to rent 
apartments or houses. However, 
they 
might 
consider 
it 
more 
worthwhile to live on campus if 
they didn’t have to worry about the 
ever-changing, undisclosed costs of 
University housing — such as, say, 
laundry.
In fact, an improvement of the 
campus laundry paradigm could 
also help the administration by 
increasing application rates for the 
University of Michigan. After all, 
although the University typically 
ranks very highly in national 
publications for most categories, the 
U.S. News and World Report ranks 
Michigan as tied for the 65th spot in 
first-year experiences. Antiquated 
and confusing rules, such as paying 
for 
laundry 
separately, 
could 
contribute to this dismal ranking 
of this statistic. When comparing 
costs of colleges through means like 
these very rankings, students will 
see the tangible benefits of having 
“free 
use” 
laundry 
machines. 
Having the costs of laundry be 
included in tuition fees could make 
college much less of an overarching 
burden on students, and it could be 
a key motivating factor for where 
students choose to attend college.
So what should the University 
do? Central Student Government 
recently passed a resolution stating 
that it would like the University to 
revise its housing rates to include 
laundry machine fees, making them 
a flat fee under room and board 
costs. This wouldn’t solve all of 
the hidden costs we deal with on a 
daily basis; however, centralizing 
one of the University’s most major 
hidden costs would be a great start. 

From The Daily: build, Santa, build

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Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890.

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AND KATE WEILAND
Editor in Chiefs

QUIN ZAPOLI AND 
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Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of The Daily’s Editorial Board. 
All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors.

EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS

Ammar Ahmad

Julian Barnard

Brandon Cowit

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Devon Hesano

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Rushabh Shah

Zhane Yamin

Nikhil Sharma

Lindsey Spencer

Evan Stern

Anna Trupiano

Jack Tumpowsky

Alex Yee

Quin Zapoli

JULIA VERKLAN 
MALONEY AND ZOE 
STORER 
Managing Editors

Cleaning up our act: How to 
eliminate a hidden cost of college

TYLER FIORITTO, 
RILEY KINA 
AND JACK HANDZEL
Guest Contributors

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

For the campus

Climate change is an opportunity for Michigan

O

n a visit to campus 
last 
Thursday, 
Vice 
President 
Kamala 
Harris 
joined 
Secretary 
of 
Energy Jennifer Granholm and 
Kyle Whyte, a professor at the 
University of Michigan School for 
Environment and Sustainability, 
to discuss climate change and 
the role young people can play in 
solving the climate crisis. 
Rather than focus on young 
people’s role in organizing and 
activism as a means to solve 
the 
climate 
crisis, 
however, 
the event had a broader focus 
on infrastructure. “Just about 
anything that the students here 
are studying will relate to and lift 
up this new movement and this 
new economy,” Harris said. 
The decision to host an event 
in Ann Arbor was politically 

savvy 
given 
the 
city’s 
blue 
slant within a reliably purple 
state. But Harris’s decision to 
speak 
specifically 
on 
climate 
infrastructure 
investments 
reflects a growing realization 
that climate change may be an 
opportunity for economic growth 
in Michigan. With its temperate 
climate, 
manufacturing 
roots 
and availability of jobs, Michigan 
has the potential to emerge as a 
national leader amid the climate 
crisis. 
Already, American workers are 
beginning to move as a result of 
climate change. Thirty percent 
of Americans say climate change 
is a motivator to move, and many 
climate-vulnerable 
states 
such 
as California are beginning to 
see their populations decline. 
Though some southern states 
have been growing in population 
recently, this isn’t predicted to 
last. “Cities like Detroit … will see 
a renaissance, with their excess 

capacity in infrastructure, water 
supplies 
and 
highways 
once 
again put to good use,” predicted 
one New York Times article. A 
separate study corroborated that 
claim, predicting that the Great 
Lakes region’s low exposure to 
natural disasters, as well as low 
social vulnerability, will lead to 
population growth as climate 
change persists. 
As more Americans move north, 
Michigan has an opportunity to 
attract displaced, highly skilled 
workers and convince them to 
settle in the Great Lakes State. 
Tourism efforts have already 
been successful in stimulating 
economic activity in Michigan, 
but to convince visitors to make a 
permanent move, new jobs need to 
be created. 
Those jobs can be created by 
new green industries. Ahead of 
her conversation with Harris, 
Granholm, a former Michigan 
governor, focused largely on the 

role technology and infrastructure 
investments passed by Democrats 
last year will play in strengthening 
green-energy 
solutions 
in 
Michigan. 
Thanks 
to 
its 
climate-
progressive 
state 
government, 
Michigan has already risen to 
dominate green-energy industries. 
One 
of 
the 
most 
prominent 
was a 
$7 billion investment in 
electric vehicle manufacturing 
in 
Michigan, 
expected 
to 
create 4,000 new jobs. Other 
investments have been made to 
strengthen electric vehicle battery 
manufacturing 
and 
renewable 
energy production. As demand 
for 
these 
green 
technologies 
continues 
to 
increase, 
these 
investments will become more 
and more valuable for the state. 
Harris was quick to point out 
that it isn’t just manufacturing 
jobs that these investments are 
creating. “We are building a clean 
energy economy,” Harris said, “It’s 

new. It’s new jobs … We’re going to 
need HR specialists because these 
are new industries. We’re going to 
need comms folks who know how 
to communicate the importance of 
this work.”
Climate change is also bringing 
renewed focus toward improving 
infrastructure in the U.S. Better 
transportation 
infrastructure 
results in more efficient travel, 
ultimately leading to a decrease in 
emissions. As pressure builds for 
more 
environmentally-friendly 
infrastructure 
improvements, 
federal and state governments will 
be under more pressure to make 
investments. 
Michigan’s 
transportation 
infrastructure 
currently 
ranks 
in the bottom half of the nation, 
and destructive natural disasters 
will compound the need for 
improvements. Though the state’s 
poor roads and bridges may seem 
to be a hindrance to fighting the 
climate crisis, they may actually 

be 
an 
opportunity. 
Already, 
investments 
are 
being 
made 
across the state. Gov. Gretchen 
Whitmer’s 
plan 
to 
“rebuild 
Michigan” is bringing a $3.5 billion 
investment that will put 90% of 
the state’s roads back to “good or 
fair” condition by 2024. A more 
significant federal plan is bringing 
$7.3 billion in road improvements, 
as well as $535 million in bridge 
investments. 
These 
investments 
aren’t 
just significant in the amount 
of money they are injecting into 
Michigan’s economy. Many of 
these investments are being made 
with climate change in mind. 
In addition to improving roads, 
the federal plan outlined above 
includes a $66 billion investment 
in public transportation, as well as 
$7.5 billion to set up a network of 
electric vehicle charging stations 
across the state.

JACK KAPCAR
Opinion Columnist

Read more at MichiganDaily.com