Ashlynn Norton | Photo Editor

It’s a common consensus across campuses that tuition is too expensive. When beginning to look at how all the fees are broken down, some of it doesn’t make sense, particularly parking fees.

As a current first-year student, I have to live on campus since my hometown is too far away to commute to and from every day. Which is fine, I enjoy living on campus. But one thing I find a little ridiculous is the fees that are tied around parking here at Western Oregon University.

Since I live on campus, I am required to have a parking pass for my car. The parking pass alone was 80 dollars that I had to pay out of pocket. I don’t think I have to remind you that I am a poor college student who doesn’t necessarily have that kind of money. Students pay thousands of dollars to attend this university, so why should students need to pay for a parking pass that doesn’t even let them park anywhere on campus? Students with a resident parking pass are only allowed to park in two locations: J lot and J loop.

The point I am trying to make is that I think if you pay for a parking pass, you should be able to park anywhere on campus without getting a parking ticket. Student employees should also get free parking passes. If an RA can have their housing paid for, why can’t a student employee get a free parking pass?

I received a parking ticket and the fee was 25 dollars. Again, poor college student here who has two jobs and lives paycheck to paycheck. I only get paid once at the end of each month, along with all the other students who work on campus. When I do get paid, all of my money goes to insurance, loans, bills, etc.; I barely have enough money left to buy myself gas for my car. Yet, the school expects students to pay their parking ticket within ten days, or else the fee increases.

Parking tickets and fees of that sort are just another way for the university to suck money out of its students.

This isn’t just a problem here at Western Oregon University. This “Parking Ticket Pandemic” is at institutions like University of Oregon, Oregon State University, and even campuses out of state.

The parking situation at OSU is so bad that there is a waitlist for parking passes. So some students aren’t even able to park on campus. Sahalie Ellickson, an Environmental Sciences major at OSU stated, “parking is really inconvenient and as a college student it is not even worth the hassle to bring a car. They make it almost impossible to drive on campus and it is not affordable by any means. It’s horrible for not only the students but the people that work here too.”

Whereas, at the University of Oregon, students have to pay a monthly fee for their parking passes. Payton Swartout, a student at the University of Oregon, said that “to have to deal with the struggle of finding a parking spot on campus, even after paying 90 dollars a term for a parking pass, is ridiculous when we are forced to spend tens of thousands of dollars to even attend the school itself.”

The way parking tickets are distributed and their fees need to be reevaluated. It’s getting to a point where it puts more stress on the students, and we already have enough as it is. The best solution to the problem here at Western Oregon University is to take away the fee increase if a parking ticket is not paid within ten days. The expectation of having a student pay a parking ticket within ten days is unrealistic and puts too much pressure on said student. Taking away the fee increase would be the first step in the right direction to make parking, and life, a little less stressful here on campus.

Contact the author at anorton17@wou.edu

Photo courtesy of Ashlynn Norton