Broke college kids can’t afford tampons

The problem with USD upcharging students for basic items

Olivia Synek / Opinion Editor / The USD Vista

Imagine you’re a first-year student at USD. It’s 10:30 p.m. and your head starts throbbing. You begin to cry because of the pain and you realize you’re having a migraine. After reaching for your Excedrin (for migraines) on the bedside table, you open the bottle and notice it’s empty. Your roommates are asleep and you don’t have access to a car. Your only option is to walk to Tu Mercado (Tu Merc). You remember seeing medicine there once. 

Somehow, despite the pain, you make it to Tu Merc. After browsing the aisles, you spot the Excedrin in the back corner. It’s when you get to the register that you really get annoyed. The cashier says, “10 dollars. On campus cash?” You think to yourself, “That seems like a lot of money,” but the pain is so bad that you pay and leave. 

$10. Tu Merc charges $10 for a bottle of 24 Excedrin capsules. This same exact product, 24 capsules of Excedrin Migraine, is $3.64 at Target and $4.29 at RiteAid. Like the first-year in the picture I painted, I was annoyed that Tu Merc charged this much for pain medication. 

I decided to figure out if USD raised the prices for other products in Tu Merc, and here is what I found: two packets of Benadryl costs $3.50. It costs $2.99 at Target for four packets. One stick of Carmex costs $2. It costs $0.98 at Walmart. One bottle of Pantene shampoo costs $11. This costs $3.99 at Target and RiteAid. 

Obviously, there is a trend of price boosting at Tu Merc. Though, I cannot seem to get one specific upcharge out of my head: the markup of tampons. Tu Merc charges $11 for a 16 pack of tampons. Upon further research, I found that Chapman University‘s on-campus grocery store charges $7.79 for the same brand of tampons, yet they have an 18 pack. For this exact same product, everywhere else charges $4.29. Not only tampons, but pads are also too expensive. A pack of 16 Stayfree pads is $8.50 at Tu Merc, while other stores sell it for  $3.99. 

USD upcharging for tampons and pads frustrates me. Sure, you do not necessarily need pain medication, chapstick, and Pantene. However, students need period products. USD has created a barrier between students and products sold in Tu Merc. The only way I would spend $11 on tampons is if I literally had no other way of getting them. Thankfully, I have a car so I would never pay that much for something out of my control. And for a lot of students, they don’t have another way to get them. There was a bill passed in California this year which enforces California schools to provide free tampons and pads in school restrooms. In every restroom on USD’s campus including the bathroom directly next door to Tu Merc, there are free period products. 

A common stereotype of college students is that we are broke. Even at USD, a private institution that typically draws in students of high socioeconomic status, there are many students with on-and-off campus jobs who work hard and save every penny for what they truly need. There is also a stereotype about USD that some people are convinced that we all have a lot of money, the upcharge of products sold in Tu Merc makes me wonder if USD believes it.  At the expense of school tuition, many students, if not most students, have some form of a job and cannot pay $11 for tampons every month. That is nowhere near affordable. 

As a woman, I feel that whoever is responsible for the price tags in Tu Mercado did not take into account that the price set for period products is too high for something we cannot control. Biological women cannot help having periods, and should not be expected to drop $50 every month. For some of us, it’s already embarrassing to have to buy tampons in public, and now we have to pay so much on top of the embarrassment?

Due to construction and not giving students near enough parking spaces on campus, USD has taken away parking privileges for first-year students. It almost seems like they are further taking advantage of students by jacking up the prices at the one grocery store they can walk to: Tu Merc. It is not just the medication and the hair/period products, but every single item I picked out from Tu Merc cost more money than a pharmacy or Target. USD should not be marking up prices and making students pay more than what they pay considering they require every student to get a meal plan for their first two years.

So picture this now, you are a first-year  student at USD who has a work study job, student loans, pays to print, pays to do laundry, and pays $9 to eat chicken tenders and fries that come from a freezer box for lunch at Bert’s Bistro. One day after work you realize you started your period and you need shampoo. You’re out of products, and you need to go to Tu Merc. The cashier says “22 dollars. On campus cash?”. Tu Merc charges $22 dollars for sixteen tampons and a bottle of Pantene, while Target charges $8.28. To me, this is not okay and it feels as if USD is being inconsiderate trying to pocket even more money. 

If USD wants to be more equitable and fair for all students financially, then the prices need to change.