On top of paying tens of thousands of dollars to study at this school, reside in this city and actively live in this college town, students are unfairly charged for on-campus amenities that they already subscribe to.
Take, for example, parking on campus. Yes, we obviously have the complaints about unwarranted tickets and ridiculous fines issued by Transportation and Parking Services (TAPS). Yes, we’ve been told that the high fee of $130 for a quarter-long parking pass is to discourage the use of motor vehicles. Yes, we purposely wait until 10 p.m. to drive to the ARC to avoid paying $7 to park. Being able to park free on the weekends is a blessing.
But when there are special events held on the weekends at venues like the ARC Pavillion or the Mondavi Center, all of a sudden no one is exempt from paying $7 to park on campus, even when it’s to attempt to use the elliptical for a measly 25 minutes or pay for an official transcript.
As students, we’re already technically paying for the facilities we use or plan to use or acknowledge and never step foot in. Sure, we may complain that we can’t go to the gym during the day because we’re too lazy to bike and parking isn’t free until 10 p.m., but on the weekends, we have no excuse. Until all of a sudden being a starving student who has no intention of watching a cheer competition isn’t enough of a reason to avoid the fee.
Rarely we’ll come across an understanding parking monitor who lets us park for free just to get to work at a building next to where the special event takes place. Let us avoid giving each other evil glares as we reverse our car out of the lot, because we have a solution.
Now that the majority of us don’t have the privilege of swiping into a dining commons, our student ID cards have little use, until now. The flash of a UC Davis student ID card should be reason enough to be exempt from paying to park on the weekends. Let the cheer moms fork over the cash and return home to a home-cooked meal while we spend the money we would’ve had to use on paying for a week’s worth of cereal.
