If you are in the US, buying a box of Tide with Bleach POWDER, will help your towels a lot. Maybe not in one wash cycle, but if you keep using each time you wash a load of towels/socks/underwear/white t-shirts and choose "hot" for wash temp, you will find in time, your towels will come back to much whiter. My condolences about uni laundry situations.

If you are in UK/EU Persil for whites granules will do the trick, with the same washing plan. Our UK members can offer names of other detergent choices for you.

The point is using the named powder/granules will get you oxygen bleach in your towels and the hot water will go a long way to make this work to your benefit.

Tide with Bleach Powder is an excellent suggestion. If you have the room in your bathroom/tub or in a bucket, you can also try soaking them in Oxiclean (with HOT water) for a few hours or overnight before bringing them to the central laundry for a proper washing.

SEA SEA, I'm in Canada and despite our proximity to the States, I have yet to see a box of Tide with Bleach powder on shelves here. I don't even think it's on the Tide website for Canada. Oddly enough it'll probably be easier to pick up German Persil.

Ok then, the German Persil (for whites, not the one for colors version) will be excellent. Probably a little better than Tide with Bleach powder. Good for you!!

Do you think regular Tide powder will do the trick or should I jump right ahead to Persil?

I use chlorine bleach more often than not on the whites/socks/towels/kitchens load.

Because you say you are in a uni situation, I would suggest using Persil for whites. One bottle to carry to the laundry room and one bottle to store in your housing accommodations. But using chlorine bleach is good too, if you have the space to store it and don't mind carrying two bottles to the laundry. You are in Canada, so I'm going to assume your washers are well maintained there. Here in the US public laundry facilities can be left run down and I would expect the bleach dispenser to not be reliable in some locations. Both are a solution and you will find improvement using either.

Edit to add: regular Tide powder is good, not as good as Tide with bleach powder for your goal, but adding chlorine bleach will help. German Persil granules will be better than the Tide powders.

Are you able to purchase Tide Rescue pods for whites where you live?

Good suggestion Mimi! Those are good for this.

Ah, that'd be great but I just checked and unfortunately they don't ship the Brights + Whites Rescue pods to Canada :( I can get the OxiClean equivalent or Resolve Crystal White powder

These are the ingredients for Resolve Crystal White Powder

Darn Canada. Can't get some nice goods there. I've not used Resolve before, however some folks here have. I know my mil used to swear by Resolve carpet cleaner--might have been a spray foam that when dried and vacuumed up, apparently removed all sins. The ingredient list looks good and it has an activator--TAED. But having had two kids in college with various laundry and limited space crisis, I still vote for the one bottle system. This will work well too though.