Despite the many little perks that Iowa State University has to offer, there is one thing that really bothers me — the parking.

Being a commuter student is difficult enough without having to struggle with the parking issue each day.

Having to pay for a parking pass is just ridiculous in the first place.

As if I, among many others, don’t already have enough tuition to pay (not to mention the cost in gas it takes to get here). The spot where my pass permits me to park isn’t really even that close to many of the main buildings. So what’s the alternative?

You could just go ahead and park in front of the building you need to be at or just park in the lot without a pass, but the parking division will see to it that your are promptly cited with a ticket.

These tickets aren’t cheap by any stretch of the imagination either. They’re 12 bucks a hit, which is more than most students make in a week.

ISU makes too much money off of parking tickets and couldn’t help but notice that when the worker opened the file cabinet to find my ticket, the whole drawer was full of tickets that were given.

Now I’m not a math whiz, but I know that 12 times thousands is a very large amount of money that ISU collects just from parking tickets.

Occasionally they will kindly tow your car to a new location, which also costs you an arm and a leg. All for what? A measly little parking violation.

I think that ISU can think of better ways to spend our money than on parking division vehicles and employees to drive around all day preying on the parking violators.

Parking should be free to students, and it should be first-come first-served; you snooze, you lose.

None of these designated parking areas or parking only between 8:00 p.m. and 5:00 a.m. If there’s an open spot right in front of you, why park a mile away and have to walk?

Hey, aren’t ISU and America in general built on the idea of equal opportunity?

I feel that I and all the other commuters have the equal opportunity to park right in front of Kildee, Bessey, Beardshear, or anywhere else without living in fear of the parking police.

Sarah Anderson

Freshman

Animal Science