Jessica Melanson ‘21
Staff Writer
Parking passes: love the idea or hate it, they’re here for a genuine reason. Most people I have spoken to think the parking situation on campus is already bad, but imagine if we had no parking passes and anybody in the area could park here as they pleased. The situation would probably be 10 times worse than it already is.
That being said, the current price for a parking pass is outrageous, and everyone I spoke to regarding the issue agrees. People have the option to either pay for a pass for the full year or just one semester. Even if you opt to only pay for one semester at a time, it’s still not an affordable option.
As a commuter student, I paid $130 for my parking pass for the year. I view that as already extremely expensive for a sticker on my car, but the price for a resident student’s parking pass is triple that amount!
Amanda Smith, a senior resident student, says she paid almost $500 for her parking pass. “It (parking passes) should be at max $200 for the year.”
Many of us already pay a hefty amount on tuition, plus the expense residents pay to live on campus and all the other associated costs I could list here, so adding in a parking pass makes everything far too expensive. The price of parking passes is placing students further in debt and the reasoning behind why the price is so high is not clear to students. If the price was cut in half that would make student’s already very tight budgets just a little more manageable.
