Parking. We all hate it here at NIU, but specifically Parking Services seems to be an institution established for the sole purpose of extorting money from already-struggling students in any way possible.

Rather than focusing on getting our commuter students some decent parking options, they instead put their energy into giving me a ticket for “improper display of permit” because I don’t want to stick it to my windshield, potentially damaging my car. Instead I keep it on the dash, in the same location that it would be viewed were it attached to the windshield. But, “it must be attached to the window” as someone from Parking Services tells me, and “Officer P6” seems to agree as he or she wrote me tickets on consecutive days before I even went to my car to see there was a ticket at all.

And it isn’t consistent, either: My car was parked in the same lot all last week and was never ticketed. Furthermore, the rate for most tickets doubles when not paid in the first 48 hours and they straight-up tell you the appeals process typically takes more than two days. They are bullying students in to paying the reduced fine with an unreasonable threat of doubling it if they appeal.

The stories you hear about Parking Services are utterly ridiculous, and the next time we ask ourselves why student enrollment is down, we should probably take a look at Parking Services and other institutions bullying and extorting our students.