Fees for VCU parking add to financial burden

Morgan White
Opinion Editor

A piggy bank, strung up by wire tied around the coin slots, hangs from a tree in Monroe Park. It’s a piñata waiting for the inevitable carnage. A VCU student’s life laid out in metaphor.

Students face a mountain of financial burden in college. Students who were enrolled prior to fall 2013 at VCU and are not required to reapply for admission are classified as block students; those enrolled after are non-block students. In-state block students pay $5,317.73 per semester for fees and tuition while out-of-state block students pay $12,843.73.

The figures are less straightforward for non-block students. If you are a non-block in-state student, tuition is $352.50 per credit hour when taking 15 credit hours or fewer. The fee for out-of-state non-block students is more than double, tuition is $954.19 per credit hour at 15 hours and fewer. The commuter parking passes at VCU garages range from $196 to $216. Housing parking options range from $305 to $340.

If you’re financially strapped to the point where you are unable to put down $200 at the beginning of the semester, there are two choices: street parking with an inevitable $20 parking ticket or using VCU garages and forfeiting the $10 a day for daily parking. Should you leave the garage after being there for six hours, only to come back after driving across town, you pay more than the $10 for the full day. If you must be there for another six hours then you might as well have just parked on the street and taken the ticket.

Two years ago with a VCU student ID the price was merely $4 and a commuter parking pass could be bought for $176. The change came after a parking proposal aimed at limiting the amount of resources VCU put into their garages.

Former VCU Senior Vice President David Hanson stated in a 2012 email that VCU had been subsidizing parking costs for “more than $5 million annually,” to cover operating costs. Between 2013 and 2018, the plan is to increase the cost of parking permits 3 percent per year, after last year’s 10 percent increase for faculty and an 8 percent increase for students.

I understand the need for trimming the budget, especially when it comes to a service like parking. I’d rather see that money being put to use at the Massey Cancer Center, on scholarships or even to create more housing. VCU can’t be expected to put over $5 million into subsidizing parking costs when they also must fund important operations.

VCU is, however, able to reallocate $10 million in student fees for the new, private basketball practice facility. Granted, the majority of the funding for the facility has come from donations, but it’s a slap in the face when that $10 million could be going to something that all students are able to take advantage of.

Increasing costs of the parking garages is supposed to be OK, though, because we can carpool with our imaginary friends who have the exact same schedules as us. I’m supposed to be able to carpool to class four days a week from Fredericksburg. I’d have to be here for close to 10 hours a day with people who are willing or have the same schedule as me.

It may not be the individual members of faculty who are to blame; I’ve met many people who have been nothing but exemplary help during my few years of education here. You are a concern of their’s because based on what you have to say about the campus you live on or commute to, you could dissuade future students from choosing to attend VCU.

If only because students hold that sway, this treatment is untenable. The institution can save itself by prioritizing students. Right now they prioritize the talents of the few over the greater good of the student body. I am the consumer of this education. If you’re a student you’re left with a massive amount of debt and an education that’ll turn out to be useless when turning in resumes to jobs post-graduation.

The institution knows they have us in their back pocket. This is the step we’re supposed to be at. It won’t matter if they take advantage of our already empty wallets in order to save them $5 million annually. The institution knows the courage our generation may lack. We will pay what we must for the sake of convenience.  Lower the prices for parking back to what they were. Understand the financial challenges that students face.