Alysia Medema, who’s a fourth year student, hopes the passes get lowered to an affordable price to prevent cost build up over the years. Photo by Zach Lalin.
Students hope Lethbridge College facilities management starts to lower the cost of parking. Besides tuition and finding a place to live, parking passes are one of the more expensive factors students need to consider when attending post-secondary.
Students are stressed on how they can budget the passes throughout the year considering they have to pay $400 on top of their tuition fees. Many of the students at the college have different views and opinions on why the passes are costly, but their opinions still lean towards making it cheaper.
Alysia Medema, a student who is in her last year at the college says she finds a way to connect with her friends by sharing the expense.
“I split my parking pass with my two roommates who are in the same program as me, so we drive together and just split the cost between the three of us.” said Medema.
By doing so, Medema only has to contribute $130 towards their parking pass. She also said the cost of the passes added up during her four years of education at the college. She was also curious about where the money goes and what they do with it.
Bryan Czernick, a building maintenance supervisor at the college said they use the money mainly for maintaining the college’s parking lots. They spend it on paving the lots, line painting, snow removal and utilities. Czernick has also suggested other ways students can deal with parking on campus.
“There are other options. Enmax now has their permits the same as the soccer centre, there’s that church in the corner they also sell permits, or [there is always] public transit.” Czernick suggests.
The Enmax Centre located near Lethbridge College permit rates are $5 a day, $15 per week, $35 every month and $115 each semester. There is also the College Drive community church beside the stadium for a much cheaper alternative. If you’re still looking for another way there’s public transit as their bus passes cost $289 per semester or $77 for the monthly pass.
Inflation caused the price of parking passes to increase over the years. The price of parking for students has been the same for the last three years. Unfortunately, students are not subsidized for the parking passes if they can’t afford it.
Compared to other post-secondary institutions, Lethbridge College definitely charges less than others. A great example is University of Lethbridge, where the prices differ from each lot depending on where students park.
The parking rates at the University of Lethbridge is approximately $750 for annual passes, $400 to $500 for an eight month pass and approximately $200 for a single semester. Fortunately for Lethbridge College students, the highest parking pass is only around $400 and that applies to all lots around campus, with a monthly pass around $80.
Max Runions, another student at Lethbridge College doesn’t seem to mind the cost of student parking.
“I think they’re not too bad but a little expensive,” Runions said. Besides the expensive parking passes, post-secondary institutions have to charge their faculty and students for parking to make sure that they are the only ones that are parked within the campus parking lots. According to an article by Austin Carmody, on College Life published in OutScholar Resource Guide for Student Life, said that if they didn’t charge students and faculty for passes, the lots would be open to the public resulting in overcrowded lots with little to no available room for students and faculty to park.
