By Nancy Scuri
Campus News
It’s happened to all of us: We’re trying to get to class on time, but we can’t find a spot to park. This causes us to circle the lots, hoping to get lucky. We can park illegally, risking a ticket or worse, or miraculously finding someone pulling out of their slot before someone else gets it. More often than not, we end up in literal circles, being late despite our best efforts. This has been an ongoing issue, but now there is a new wrinkle. Where before, students were only charged a nominal fee to cover the physical permit and any administrative fees, now students and faculty alike are being hit with expensive parking fees over and above the cost for the permit.
Parking on campus has historically been a problem for both students and staff. It seems like the time crunch resulting from trying to locate a spot reasonably close to where we want to be has always been with us. During the pandemic, it was not so pronounced as virtual classes became the norm, but as we are returning to campus and being joined by more and more new students, an old problem has become more of a pressing concern: Where am I going to park my car? And now, we can add: “How am I going to pay to park?”
Traditionally, it’s pretty straightforward: You register for class, give the school your vehicle information, they give you a pass or sticker and you hunt down a spot in the student parking lot. There may be a small fee of $20-$30 for the year, but that would be it. Now, as students are returning to campus in increased numbers, colleges and universities are looking to boost revenues and taking it to the streets to do so. Some schools have instituted an annual charge on top of the permit costs, but others have taken a big step beyond a simple fee.
Colleges across the region will be watching Stony Brook University, as they do away with their traditional parking scheme of issuing passes for employees and faculty, commuters, and residential students. As of the fall 2023 semester, all parking, including faculty and staff, will incur an additional fee of several hundred dollars, with higher rates for more desirable parking. This includes “Premium Parking” for commuting students, allowing them to avoid parking in commuter lots on the far edges of campus and taking a bus to get to class. Needless to say, this tiered parking plan has not been a popular decision with students or staff, but the school has shown no signs of going back to the old parking scheme. Stony Brook President Maurie McInnis noted in her recent State of the University address that the revenue would go towards parking improvements and put the school in closer alignment with other SUNY schools.
How things unfold at Stony Brook can affect students who never set foot on the campus. Currently, the majority of colleges are not as aggressive with parking fees, but as costs go up, schools, including community colleges, may decide to model themselves after the SBU system, and start charging everyone to access parking on campus with the potential to adopt the SBU plan of tiered parking for improved access to classroom buildings. We are already seeing increased parking fees at CUNY schools, including Bronx Community and LaGuardia Community Colleges. At CUNY schools, the average cost for students is approximately $100-$200 per year. Starting next fall semester, Stony Brook’s parking fees would range from $100-$600.
Among the issues raised about “pay to play” parking, is that the tiered plan, where premium lots closest to lecture halls, libraries, and administration buildings come with premium fees, potentially excluding students who cannot afford central parking. The argument these students make is that by forcing them to less accessible parking lots, it can add substantial amounts of time to their commute, impacting their ability to do simple things for college success like getting to campus on time. This would impact their ability to get to class on time, attend club or cultural events, or study with classmates at the library as getting back and forth from the central campus to their vehicles would become more difficult, or in the case of parking their car in a remote lot for an evening class that gets out well after dark, unsafe.
Despite the actions of unions, faculty, and students, if you attend a college in an urban or suburban area, you may very well have to start factoring in substantial parking fees into your cost calculations. If you currently pay a nominal fee to park on campus, count yourself lucky, because, at least for colleges in more populated areas, free parking’s days may be numbered
Nancy Scuri is a freelance writer and editor with over fifteen years of teaching experience at the college level. Have a writing question? You can reach her at nancyscuri.substack.com.
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