The price of parking permits incurs its first increase since 2011 in order to fund $5 million worth of identified parking lot repairs on campus. For a list of parking pass prices, go to bit.ly/1UdcobQ.

Jay Ibarra

Scene Editor

I could easily see the recent spark in parking permits turning students away from wanting to continue to buy new permits and just walking to class instead — with the exception of buying a permit at the end of the semester, when it gets colder.

What’s difficult about this new rise is the clear disadvantage the student commuter has. To get to class, they have to pay for some form of campus parking.

For the on-campus students who have to endure the fluctuating cold climates, the walk-to-class is not always bearable.

Despite these ridiculous increases in prices, I can’t foresee our students not continuing to buy a pass and park all-year-around, I think they will at least do the walk in the fall and buy the parking pass at half price in the spring time when our weather is most unpredictable. If they’re worried about a loss of money, they’ll make up for it.

Rachel Scaman

Managing Editor

As someone who has never taken NIU parking tickets seriously, I have no issue with parking pass prices increasing. However, I do think increasing the prices will not help NIU raise money for parking lot repairs.

Parking at NIU has, and probably always will be, a pain in the neck. Even if you have a parking pass, there’s no guarantee you’ll get a parking spot.

NIU should start by lowering parking pass prices so that more people will want to purchase one. NIU should also have less blue permit parking and more yellow permit parking, since student greatly out number staff and faculty.

As much as NIU parking lots need repairing, I think NIU should first start with finding a place it can build a new parking lot. That may also give students a reason to spend more money on a parking permit.

Christopher Loggins

Editor in Chief

I feel as though the decision to raise the prices for parking passes by such a high amount will have negative effects on the amount of people who choose to use them. Paying a higher price isn’t giving holders of the passes any privileges they weren’t receiving before.

It might have hurt NIU to mention that the increase in prices is strictly for $5 million worth of repairs to the parking lots on campus. I personally am not someone who owns a car so the change isn’t affecting me, but it seems like somewhat of an unneeded expense at the moment.

Even if parking lots on campus aren’t up to an exceptional standards, they are probably good enough to avoid raising prices for parking by 200% and spending such a high amount to fix the issues that may be present. The change isn’t benefitting students in any way, shape or form.