By Courtney Singleton
In nearly 50 years of AUM’s existence, commuter students have had free on-campus parking. That has recently changed. Starting this fall, students are paying $30 annually for a parking permit that allows them access to park on campus anytime. While faculty and staff have always paid for parking, their rates went up drastically from only $25 to $75 a year.
There has been talk of paying for parking at AUM for the last few years, but students did not find out about the fee until closer to the beginning of the semester. Starting Sept. 28, all cars not registered with the new parking decal will receive a ticket. Paid parking permits were brought up to the SGA last fall in hopes of adding more security on campus and helping AUM police identify cars that do not belong on the premises. The school is also looking at building a parking deck in the near future.
Emily Perkins, a commuter student, feels the parking permits are a great idea. However, since there is not much room for students to park already, campus police w ill need to be more lenient when it comes to writing tickets. “I found out in late July through email about paying for parking and if the announcements would have been handled in a more effective manner, more people would have had the parking decals sooner than the first day and it would not be like a slap in the face with more fees,” Perkins said.Perkins will be graduating in May 2016, so she will not be able to reap the benefits of a new parking deck but agrees that it was time for the school to have more security with cars coming onto AUM’s campus.
Tristen Hewitthas lived on campus for three years and has never had to pay an additional fee for parking except for the residence hall parking. Now, if she decides to drive closer to the buildings, she would need to pay an extra $30 for the parking and have two decals on her car. One is for parking at her residence hall and the other is for parking on campus.
Attempts to receive a few answers from campus police for this article have found no response. If you have not already registered your car, you can do so online by going to www.aum.edu/about/parking.
Photo Courtesy of AUM’s Facebook
