The worst part is paying for the permit and still having to spend 20 minutes circling the lot like a vulture because there are zero spots left. You’re basically paying for a license to hunt for parking.
this post was submitted on 22 Jan 2026
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My uni charged a parking fee to every student.
You still couldn't park unless you also bought a parking pass.
I WORKED at a university and had to pay for parking!
My employer has an attached garage that is free to us. It's not big enough for everyone, so you better get in before 9:30 if you want a spot. Parking nearby is $18.
My Uni secretly wouldn’t give tickets during finals week because they didn’t want to drive students over the edge.
Mine withheld transcripts and diplomas if their were open tickets and absolutely would have given tickets out during finals.
My university was kind enough to offer a free lot on the far side of campus. They even had the bus go there.
They would also regularly send parking enforcement to find cars "hiding" off main campus that had delinquent fines. They would then boot the students car removing their access to transportation.
Pretty cruel since this was deep in the south and there was no functioning transit off-campus
Mine had issues with tires getting slashed, and items stolen in lots that were patrolled by campus police, who couldn't catch the criminal. When the city police got involved, they found out it was the campus police.
Mine didn't charge tuition fees
My first one, which was downtown, did the exact same thing, but didn’t even have enough parking for the people with passes, so everyone parked juuuuuuuuuust off campus and didn’t pay. All the houses within a 3 block radius were owned by either faculty or people who rented them to students, so they didn’t care at all. The only students who really used the lots were either living on campus and had to pay to store the vehicle anyway, or disabled people who didn’t have to pay.
The second one I transferred to, however, was amazing. Every building could be accessed via tunnels, and was set up like a wheel with spokes so each building connected to the center as well as its neighboring buildings, iirc. You could navigate the entire campus without going outside (Midwest winters). Every building also had a huge parking lot nearby, which was free because the campus was not close to anything but residential housing; campus was completely surrounded by conservation study acreage, as ecological sciences were very important there. Busses came mostly as scheduled. It was a dream of a place to go to school, honestly.
Dutch universities: "bike parking is free. There's a bus stop in front of every building and busses are free for students. Why would we waste everyone's money just so you can park for free?"
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At UMD, you have to buy a parking pass, but during basketball and football games you can't use them and you can't park there, because they're selling our spaces for more money to sports attendees. Insane.
Sports have been ruining academics since ancient Greece at least.
Universities are ideal places for investing in public transit, fuck cars
You’re assuming that’s a realistic option. I’d also prefer it, but in the meantime we have to deal with reality.
This is such a bad excuse for subsidizing rich kids who got free cars from their parents. I used to live in a rural town in the US and the local college had usable bike paths AND decent access to bus routes
Ironically it wasn't until I moved to a city five times the size that I was having 1+ hour bus trips to get across town and bus times were sometimes comparable to walking due to routes being too long.
Accessibility is 100% a choice by the local government and university admins.
Edit, just to be crystal clear about feasibility:
There are situations where enough people have cars (or helicopters if theyre in an extremely wealthy area) that it might make sense to provide amenities for some travelers private accomodations but in most cases busses are often the best solution for universities and colleges because they both have massive seasonal traffic fluctuations (meaning parking investmests go unused 25% of the year and therefore parking fees need to be 33% higher to pay for annual maintenance) and because students are more likely to have issues with maintaining or replacing a car if they even have on.
I went to a university in a rural area, they invested in local bus services to make it free for students. It was cheaper than building more parking anyways
Counterpoint: Fuck cars.
agree but unfortunately for a lot of students in the USA the only form of transit to their university is by car
It's more an infrastructure problem. I'm so glad to have had affordable tuition, bikeable infrastructure and good public transit
Very important point (VIP)
I recommend “the high cost of free parking” by Donald Shoup.
I'm a third-party non-employee lecturer at my local university. I teach scuba, underwater photography, and scientific diving. The courses are taught off-campus at a dive shop using the shop's its classrooms, pool, and equipment. The liability insurance is paid by me.
There's a lake on campus we dive at, and the university charges students to enter it.
The students have to pay $3000+ in tuition for some of my classes.
...and the university doesn't give me or the shop a dime. The students have to pay a 200 dollar lab fee, and that's split between me and the shop for the semester. The only thing the university provides is the course numbers and taking the money, and they get 30 times as much money as I do.
I have multiple individual cameras I use to teach the class that cost more than I make in 5 years of teaching the photography class.
And they want to charge me $800/year for parking for the rare occasions when I need to go on campus.
Fuck that - I just let them ticket me. The parking services department isn't a law enforcement agency. The biggest threat they really have is withholding grades for students who owe parking tickets.
Its almost like university's see you as a pay check!
I helped my buddy with a project during our freshman year and as my payment, he sent me a photo of his parking pass and its dimensions.
Better believe I used that fake pass alllllll year. Never got caught 'neither.
I did have a buddy get caught, though, and it was quite the fine.
I just read about a campus building a multilevel parking lot for students who live in their cars. They could build a residence hall, but why normalize structural living, when there is no way they could afford it with their student loans. Just preparing them for reality.
Of course, the average new car price is over $50K, so cars aren't going to be a viable living option for many, either. Perhaps they should set up a campground area on campus, for students who can only afford a tent?
I am once again recommending everyone read Donald Shoup's The High Cost of Free Parking.
The way a lot of students solve this in Australia, at least in Melbourne where I'm from, is by taking the train (or a tram) to university. The university I went to was adjacent to a train station.
Students from low-income families and that are independent get money from the government which can be used for anything, including public transport passes. Living on campus isn't really a thing in Australia, so a lot of students continue to live with their parents while at uni to save money, or live at an apartment nearby.
I checked the journey to the university near me. It's currently 2pm on a Thursday, using live travel data
- car: 14 mins
- bike: 48 mins (route illegal, as you'd have to bike on the shoulder of a 4 lane freeway)
- public transport: 1h40m, 3 changes, each with a 7 min walk between them
- on foot: 2h46 mins
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Should be more. Parking spots for non-disabled people shouldn't be subsidized by those who don't bring such ridiculous things on campus.
A lot of campus locations lack good public transit or local retail access for necessities.
When you don’t support any kind of parking you also make it difficult for people who have full time jobs or are continuing education as adults. Single parents also go to school, I know, I was in college as a child(obviously not enrolled.)
A lot of campus locations lack good public transit or local retail access for necessities.
So that’s the problem, that’s what needs to be fixed. Not more parking.
People are too selfish in this country to consider that public services like transit end up making everything more comfortable, cheaper and better for everyone.
Expecting everyone to use a car from point A to point B means everyone has to pay to insure and maintain their car, then sit in traffic 1-2+ hours a day for their commute to where the jobs are that pay more than minimum wage and cause gridlock for everybody. Plus we all burn extra gas to make sure we accelerate the climate damage even further. It's the motherfucking american way. oorah support our troops, bless your heart, thoughts and prayers!
So moronic.
From a European perspective that sounds like madness. 🙃
Isn't that basically the US's slogan at this point?
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Schools with good public transit are a real blessing. I remember living off campus at UT Austin and missing more than a few classes due to the miserable bus schedule. A big chunk of that was the result of the bumper to bumper traffic through central Austin. But it's a problem the city/state knew existed for decades and refused to address.
Commuter schools are even worse. They straight up don't provide student housing, then get mad when you need student parking.
We don't have parking on campus, really awesome when my injury plays up. >:( To be fair there's no room lol.
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I teach at a local university and it provides some free parking in addition to paid parking. Of course, the paid spaces are closer to the buildings, but at least there’s some free spaces, too.
I just parked on the streets by campus and ate the parking tickets. I think I only got four tickets over the five years of college, and each one was $28 I think.
I gotta say 200 is cheap for university parking. Should be 2k. If you can afford a driving commute to a university you can afford a parking permit.
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But it’s good.
If parking is free, you’d still be paying for it indirectly through your tuition. By charging for it, only those who actually need it pay for it.
Imagine you don’t have/use a car but still indirectly pay for other people’s parking spots because they can’t be bothered to walk.
You already pay for stuff you don't use that's just the nature of how business works. Why draw the line at parking?
I personally don't like public restrooms so if I agree not to use them can I get cheaper tuition? It's not fair for me to pay for something I don't really use right?
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Nah. I paid 200€ a semester student contribution for a train ticket and the student parliament and stuff and 0€ tuition. But I ended up taking the 30min car ride instead of 2h bus+train and the car park was free (it was just a gravel plot but who cares).
My taxes and tuition are paying for literally billions of dollars for stuff at my states public university system that I never use. It’s a great investment giving us one of the best education systems in the country.
The picture doesn't say where they are but my youngest is at university in a rural area about two hours drive away. They have plenty of land for parking and it’s tough to get anywhere off campus without a car. More importantly I need to take a full day off work to drive him back after break, when he could get himself there if there was a spot to park
Historically train service existed, so there’s hope, but restoring service lost even the funding to study and plan with the current policy chaos, and would have been far in the future anyway.
Instead my kid abit crazy - literal ten mile hike to get to a wilderness area where he can hike. What other parent has a kid walking 20+ miles, after going to class all day?
Why burden the kids who don't require parking with paying for parking for kids with cars?
Parking lots are one of the most expensive parts of modern infrastructure often requiring massive vaults or ponds to offset stormwater runoff increases from paving over large areas and rendering huge swaths of land ( 30% in some places) unusable.
Imo parking is subsidized way too much and bus routes are not subsidized enough. The solution before car companies lobbied mandatory parking minimums into existence was simply provide more busses per person
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