Students can do a load of laundry on the Hill for $1 less starting next month, following a price reduction effort led by student government and housing officials.

The cost of a load of laundry will drop from $2.75 to $1.75 on March 1. Undergraduate Students Association Council members and UCLA Housing officials started collaborating on the reduction in the summer, said USAC President Robert Watson.

The price will be lowered for the next 20 years, according to a Facebook post from the USAC Office of the President. UCLA Housing agreed to pay for the costs due to a surplus in funds, Watson said.

UCLA Housing also committed to improve laundry machines by including an updated system to track laundry, Watson said. He said his office directors, Joshua Feldman and Jonathan Tsou, were directly in charge of negotiating with Housing officials.

“My role in this was very broadly directing them to the right people and making sure that they knew what the mission was … to make it affordable, and they’re the ones who accomplish it, so they’re the ones who were in these meetings, really negotiating,” Watson said.

Feldman and Tsou communicated with Steve Dundish, the assistant director of UCLA Housing and Hospitality Services and Assistant Vice Chancellor Peter Angelis to discuss and see the initiative through, Watson said.

Some Hill residents said they think the price reduction will be helpful for students.

“I complained about that all the time, so I’m actually really happy,” said Rieber Vista resident Charles Juric, a third-year political science student.

Hedrick Hall resident Anna Bettendorf, a first-year global jazz studies student, said although she thinks laundry should be free, the lower cost is still beneficial.

Cheaper laundry costs on the Hill was one of Watson’s campaign promises during the 2019 USAC spring election.

“If you put a dent in all of that together it does add up, and perceptually speaking students shouldn’t be paying like three or four dollars for laundry especially with machines that sometimes don’t even work,” Watson said.