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It is totally ridiculous how US universities would rather allow someone coming to a football game or basketball game to park than people who want to get an education to further themselves. I understand that charging attendees hefty fees brings money in but since when should a university not have education as its first and foremost goal?
Ranting about something or some place in particular?
I have not experienced what you have written.
Football games are for the most part on Saturdays, when not many students have classes anyway.
Student spaces - if they are leased - are reserved for them, basketball game day or not. And most BB games are later in the evening, when most evening classes are in progress or even done.
Some facts from you might help. Also, stadiums are generally built with sufficient parking for the stadium while academic areas are not. In addition, while a university may once have had additional parking, as it grows and increases in academic and/or living space, there tends not be be a sufficient corresponding size in dedicated parking.
What about the fact that students can, and do, park in football stadium lots on non game days? A football season lasts less than four months, and home games are generally only every other weekend. The vast majority of the time, nobody is at the stadiums/arenas etc, during which students are free to park in the lots, at least in my experience.
It is totally ridiculous how US universities would rather allow someone coming to a football game or basketball game to park than people who want to get an education to further themselves. I understand that charging attendees hefty fees brings money in but since when should a university not have education as its first and foremost goal?
Because biology and chemistry experiments do not pay the bills. The cold hard reality is universities need money to operate and athletics generate revenue. Take the bus.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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It's the same logic that causes them to accept foreign students over locals, the tuition is higher, so increases revenue. Students pay a flat fee for a parking permit, football fans pay whatever the college wants to charge for their parking for 3-4 hours. At our local university it's $40. With almost always sold-out crowds now, that's 70,000 x $40 = 2.8 million in one day if everyone drove by themselves. Realistically, 2-4 people are together and some take public transportation or their boats, but even a third of that is still close to a million.
I suspect the OP, like many is at a school where they don't have dedicated parking for the stadium, but use the resident parking lots for football parking. So the residents, you know, the students who actually live there, have to move their cars and find some place else to park.
I went to a school that was somewhat like this- you essentially couldn't use your car on football weekends because once you left your spot, it would be gone until the football crowds left. You essentially had to stay on campus from Thursday through Sunday.
It was an annoyance, but there were only ~6 home games per year and football is a contributing factor to the name recognition of the school that I attended, so we all just sucked it up. I agree though, it was frustrating.
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