Why make students pay an outrageous price just to get where they need to go for their education? To all of the college/university campuses in the nation that charge a fee for parking; students on campus may barely be getting by for the necessities they actually need; like rent, class fees, books, and gas.
“Parking Passes Should Be Free on College Campuses, We’re Just Trying to Get to Class.”, written by Brianna Shackleford explains that college students all around the nation are going back to their second home for another school year. No matter how different every private or state college/university is, there is one thing every single one has in common. Overpriced parking permits.
Whether you are commuting every day or if you just brought your car to campus with you, it truly feels like every college or university, no matter what size, is trying to run your bank account dry by charging you yearly to park your car. Is free parking too much to ask for? Is the cost of going to school not high enough? According to Shackleford, “Why make those kids who are paying that much, or maybe even higher depending on where you go, extra in order for them to be able to park on campus?”. Tuition is not a cheap thing at any college or university. As students, you do not even know what we are all actually paying for when it says “tuition”, to students it just sounds like a waste of money. On the other hand, if schools took part of that tuition money students do pay and put it towards free parking on campus, there would be a lot of more joyous students.
In another article written by Matt Reed, he quotes that “I’ve gone on record supporting Open Educational Resources in place of expensive textbooks, and Free Community College in place of tuition.Free parking, when practical, strikes me as another version of the same thing. It’s a straightforward way to get economic barriers out of the way of education”. By adding parking fees to students at universities/colleges, it would not be to “allocate a scarce resource”, but for the sake of revenue.
In order to receive a higher education these days, America is making it harder and harder. In “Obama Unveils Plan for Free College Parking” written by Sidd Finch, Obamas initiative that he proposed in 2015, ‘America’s College Parking Pass’, gives free parking to every student, faculty, and staff member across the country. Why is this important, Obama is out of office? Because if we spread this proposal into today’s society to potential be used, “it could be huge”.
Morningside, and other universities/colleges across the nation, have some explaining to do. Why charge students that are just trying to get to class?
Links–
https://www.theodysseyonline.com/parking-pass-free-college
https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/confessions-community-college-dean/defense-free-parking
https://www.higheredjobs.com/articles/articleDisplay.cfm?ID=640