Parking tickets will always be an inconvenience. But when they affect students’ ability to attend to pressing academic needs, they become a serious problem.
When the Department of Public Safety issues a parking ticket on campus, it runs the car’s license plate number to see if the car is registered in the name of a UNC student. If it is, DPS passes the student’s name to the University registrar’s office, and a hold is placed on the student’s account.
This means the student in question can’t add or drop a class, request a transcript or receive a diploma until the fine is paid.
Since this can happen at any time during the semester, students often face unexpected hurdles when trying to decide whether they will be able to take a class or if they’ll need to end up dropping it. Frequently, it’s impossible for a student to determine this until after they take their first exam.
For those who decide it isn’t in their best interest to take a class, an outstanding parking ticket can mean the difference between successfully dropping it and missing the deadline.
Since these unpaid parking tickets have the power to affect a student’s academic progress, there should be a way for the student to defer the ticket to his or her tuition bill.
It’s unlikely that a policy like this could result in tickets going unpaid indefinitely. Students must pay tuition at the beginning of each semester in order to be able to register for classes, and seniors must pay their tuition bills in full before graduating.
Of the 2,000 to 3,000 parking citations DPS issues in a typical month, only those issued to students carry these extra penalties. Tickets given to UNC’s staff and faculty can simply be deducted from their paycheck if they aren’t paid immediately.
Allowing students’ fines to be deferred to their tuition bill would be the fairest way to approximate this. The current policy is disproportionately punitive to students and should be revised.
