The early riser usually gets the parking spot on NIU’s campus.

Parking services traditionally issue more brown and yellow parking passes than they have spaces for because of varying student schedules, said Laura Lundelius, coordinator of parking and traffic.

“Students come on different days of the week at different times,” Lundelius said. “We don’t have the resources to print out each student’s schedule to see when they would all be on campus.”

Brown parking passes are given to students who live within the city of DeKalb and yellow passes are for students who commute from outside the city of DeKalb, Lundelius said.

Brown parking passes are $25 per year and the yellow passes are $60 per year, she said.

Lundelius also said there is enough parking for every student, but it sometimes isn’t convenient. An estimated 388 spaces are available for students with brown parking permits, she said.

After 4 p.m. there are various blue lots throughout campus that open up to brown permit holders, she said.

Parking services occasionally runs into people who try to get issued a different permit than they are qualified for, Lundelius said. When this happens, parking services first tries to contact the person about returning the permit. The second time, they are issued a ticket.

“This happens every year–some people say they know friends who do this but won’t want to give up their information,” Lundelius said.

Somya Munjal, a junior accountancy major who commuted to school for two and a half years, said parking lots tend to get crowded as early as 9 a.m.

“If you commute to school you want to get your classes out of the way early,” Munjal said. “It got easier in my later classes, but when I was in my gen eds it was hard to find a spot.”