The cost of renting a locker on campus has doubled since fall 2012, now costing $50 per semester, according to director of university safety Allan Burns.
Locker rentals are managed and administered through parking services, a division of university safety.
Burns said for the past two to three years, they have experienced a sell-out of all lockers in core areas of campus.
They have also received online complaints from students who were not able to rent lockers, he said.
“We conducted a survey with some users who rented lockers and didn’t occupy [them] and discovered they were purchasing them for speculation in case of weather, etc.,” Burns said via email.
He said students were purchasing lockers for speculation because they were so affordable.
Burns said parking services conducted focus groups in spring 2013 to determine if they could avoid similar issues this year by raising the price of lockers to $50.
The surveys and focus groups showed that it would not impact students’ purchasing decisions if increasing the price of locker rentals raised their chances of getting a locker in core areas of the campus, according to Burns.
Kyleigh Jordan, a first-year student, said she chose to share a locker this year to save money.
