By Elizabeth Spencer
Reporter
Most Baylor students are not strangers to high tuition costs and working long hours to keep up with their fees.
Aledo senior Austin Dorchester is offering a solution to both problems: paying student workers in wages and in scholarship money as their paychecks.
CO-ED Car Wash is a 100 percent student-operated business with locations in College Station, Austin and Waco.
“Austin set it up that way to use it as a way for students to work in college and to be able to have a way to pay off school payments at the same time,” said Durango, Colo. senior Christopher Allen, an employee for the company.
“Scholarship money can’t be taxed,” Dorchester said. “I want my employees to have money to go toward what they need for school.”
The idea for his startup came when Dorchester faced the pressures of being an entrepreneurship student in the modern world.
“Being an entrepreneurship student, I planned to run something and to start a business right out of school,” Dorchester said. “Of course there’s some imminent concerns with experience coming out of college and running a business.”
He started a business while he was in college and the risk was low, and came up with a simple idea for a business.
Flexibility and working with busy college students’ schedules is a priority, Dorchester said. Students work when they can, an average of 15 to 30 hours a week. Students apply by emailing Dorchester through the business email on the CO-ED Car Wash Club website, www.CO-EDcarwash.com.
Dorchester said he and his employees are excited to see where the future of the company leads, although he didn’t expect or want it to grow into a massive franchise.
“We definitely want more quality over quantity,” Dorchester said.
Dorchester said he also works one-on-one with employees to make sure they understand the value they’re putting in the company.
“I personally have learned from Austin to maintain the club’s standards by properly managing time on the job and the need for efficiency,” said Katy senior Andrew Futcher, an employee for the company.
Futcher said he also has high hopes for the business and is confident they will do their best to continue the quality of their work.
“I want my employees to see what it’s like to work for a growing startup,” Dorchester said. “They’ll be there through the ups and downs, good and bad.”
