Rumor has it that the University of North Dakota oversold their parking permits this year. UND offers certain zones that require parking permits; ‘A’ is only offered for the administrative faculty/staff, ‘S’ is offered for the student lots, ‘H’ is for on-campus housing zones such as residence halls and apartments, ‘A/S/H’ lots are for anyone with any of the A, S, or H parking permits and a UND parking permit of any kind is also required for accessible (handicap) parking.

Students at UND who are interested in bringing cars to campus are required to purchase a parking permit of some sort. UND Parking Services offers many types of parking permits; HJFS, H18, HMU and HPR, depending on which lot is most efficient for the students. For example, if a student lives in residence halls like Squires, Walsh, Bek or Hancock, they are assigned to the HPR parking lot, since that is the closest lot to those residence halls.

Parking permits at UND however range from $65-$400 for a full year and students have had enough with the unavailability of parking spots. Students have complained about being late to classes due to the lack of parking spots in certain lots, many even feel that they are not receiving what they paid for. Students purchase parking permits to ‘play it safe’ and not risk getting any violations.

“I think the pricing of the ticket is fair but the biggest problem for me is that our overflow parking lot is really far away from our assigned lot,” UND freshman Olivia Drane said. “I’m a resident of Squires Hall and when our assigned lot is full, it frustrates a lot of people since our overflow parking lot is by the Gorecki Alumni Center. I don’t want to walk in negative weather conditions when I purchased a parking permit for the full year, more specifically purchased a parking permit for the lot of my choice. This makes it difficult for students to find parking around campus if they need to go somewhere so to me, it just seem more like a waste of money than anything else.”

Students who don’t live on campus also have problems with parking as well. Many students who attend UND live in apartments or houses around campus but a car is usually preferred when going to classes. Columbia Hall  has the most ‘chaotic’ parking lot according to students. In an attempt to beat the chaos, you can see students arrive 30-40 minutes prior to their class just to avoid the chaos of finding a valid spot. Some students admit that there are not enough student parking spaces available, so they will park in the administrative or staff faculty lot and pray that UND Parking Services didn’t give out tickets.

The University of North Dakota should reconsider their parking permits. Students have started to speak out on behalf of other permit holders, the frustrations are only getting worse from here on out. It is with strong belief that more parking lot spaces should be available to students, especially since students are paying for their space.