Campus Living explains CSC Pay laundry app requirement

In the 2022-23 school year, Lewis & Clark implemented the requirement for all students living on campus to download the CSC Pay Mobile app to do laundry. However, the laundry app has presented many problems for some students. Director of Campus Living Ben Meoz explained why the app system was instituted.

“At the end of the 2021-22 school year, we were reviewing feedback from students about the laundry facilities and there were a lot of complaints related to the number of machines available per student in each of the buildings and … that when people would go to do laundry, machines were always in use,” Meoz said. “The funds required to add machines in the buildings require additional plumbing, additional electrical (maintenance). Those are funds that are simply not available to try and increase the amount of machines that each room can support.”

Meoz further elaborated on the decision to implement the laundry app, explaining that it was a way for students to view accessible machines.

“What we focused on was how we can make laundry more navigable for students so they can see a neighboring building, for instance, if they have access to a residential area,” Meoz said. “If a student in Hartzfeld, we got a lot of complaints from students in Hartzfeld because they have small laundry rooms, could see another building in Hartzfeld or could see Holmes on an app, (they would) know that they could walk over and do laundry because Holmes has a very large laundry room. We wanted to focus on how people could see the system and make laundry decisions based on that because it wasn’t feasible to add additional machines.”

Meoz explained the reasoning behind why LC then implemented the laundry app requirement.

“We talked with our laundry vendor. They had an app that they could offer and that would add no additional costs to the contract that we have to pay for laundry, so we weren’t going to have to change anything about the cost of laundry,” Meoz said. “But there was definitely information that wasn’t provided at the time we agreed to that about how it would work in terms of needing to load funds (fake money) onto students’ accounts in order for them to do laundry. It was supposed to just start a load and be very simple. I think the roll-out of the app ended up being a lot rockier here than what the concept is. And we continue to get feedback from people about whether the availability of the machines the app shows is accurate at times.”

Jayden Haight ’26 shared that in her experience, the laundry app worked relatively well. 

“Personally, it works pretty well. Sometimes it will lie to me and say that one of the washing machines is open when it’s not. But I like it and I don’t have a problem with it,” Haight said.

Belle Tucker ’26 on the other hand, had more issues than Haight and expressed a negative view of the app. 

“Personally, I feel like there could be a better way of having free laundry services because I think having laundry be free is good but through an app, I don’t know,” Tucker said.  “Sometimes on mine, it will reset and it will log me out and then I lose all the money balance I have, and then you have to email Campus Living, and then it’s like ‘OK I can’t do my laundry right now.’ So it’s kind of inconvenient,” Tucker said. “The app isn’t accurate about which washers and dryers are open.”

When asked about which kind of improvements she had in mind, Tucker said that she would rather do away with the app altogether, partially because the college does not have control over how well the app runs and especially because she does not consider the app necessary to do laundry.

“I definitely think there could be improvements: either just having washing machines that you don’t need to connect to an app or pay for or just make the app better. I know that the school doesn’t own the app, but there definitely could be improvements made,” Tucker said. “If they could find a way so that the washers and dryers run without having you to do anything, I think that would be the best option for students.”