F ree night parking at UNC has long been a sensible and helpful policy for University students and employees, but with the Board of Trustees’ decision to end the practice, unfair burdens will now be placed on the people who make the University the great institution that it is.
All students except freshmen will now pay a $10.40 fee for night parking — whether they use parking at all or not.
University employees who do not have a day pass but need to park at night will have to pay for a night parking permit, which ranges in price depending on the level of the employee’s salary.
The new system is overly punitive to students and employees of lesser means.
Students are already paying incredibly high fees and tuition, money that is sometimes spent carelessly. And by making the fee flat and non-optional for all students, it essentially acts as a regressive tax. Students without cars could come from lesser financial backgrounds, but they too must pay the fee.
Meanwhile, nighttime university employees, who, unlike daytime employees, have extremely limited access to free public transportation, will essentially be forced to pay for a permit that is disproportionately hurtful for low-salary employees. Paying $227 is a much more painful bite out of a paycheck for a person making less than $25,000 per year than $390 is for a person making over $100,000 per year.
UNC Department of Safety spokesman Randy Young justified the new fees to The Daily Tar Heel last week by saying that previously, nighttime employees unfairly had their parking subsidized by daytime employees. But daytime employees will not save any money from the imposition of these new fees. No one benefits from increased parking costs across the board.
It’s true that given the context of state budget cuts, the University needs as much money as it can get its hands on, but putting disproportionately hurtful fees into place is not a fair or justifiable way for the University to recoup its losses.
