[rtempaccount1]

Wouldn't it make sense that the university, that is charging the students all this money, ensure they have enough parking spaces to satisfy likely demand?

Doesn't seem unreasonable for universities with very high tuitions, to provide amenities like reliably available parking.

[cortesoft]

This is just spreading the cost of parking to people who don't use it... instead of only people who drive their own cars paying for the parking, now everyone has to.

Does the school also pay for public transportation for people who don't drive? Or the extra housing costs of the people who pay extra to live close enough to walk?

[falcolas]

This new engineering building is just spreading the cost of classrooms to people who don’t use it.

This new fitness building is just spreading the cost of athletics to people who don’t use it.

The new wheelchair ramps are just spreading the cost of being handicapped to people who don’t use it.

You could apply that logic to all of a college (or life, if you count taxes and insurance) experience. Not everybody is going to use it, but the cost is spread to not disproportionally applied to a single demographic.

[__s]

You've just made a claim that your wealth to own a car is comparable to someone who can't use their legs. Accessibility is also something which is becoming a legal requirement, eg https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/12/10/fifty-college...

A new engineering building would be an investment, it's expected to increase future returns

[afiori]

While I disagree with the car centric model that parking lots encourage this is about how can an University ease attendance for students.

If for various reasons on campus housing and public transport are unavailable then parking can be a forced option

[beatgammit]

To be fair, many college buildings are provided in large part by donations, but I don't think the same is true for parking lots.

Ideally, each student would receive value from the university roughly relative to the tuition they pay, and things that are completely optional should be charged for separately. I think it's reasonable to charge separately for:

- cafeterias - housing - tickets to performances

Why should parking be treated separately? Providing parking for free just encourages more parking, which means more pressure to create more parking, etc. Charging for it separately encourages more efficient commutes, whether by bus, bike, walking, or carpooling.

The same goes for cities and other areas with limited resources. Charging for those limited resources encourages more efficient use of those resources, as well as alternatives. Parking is merely one solution to transportation, why should we subsidize it over others?

[afiori]

Parking fares are generally more about congestion controll rather than dissuasion

[samatman]

> Does the school also pay for public transportation for people who don't drive?

Frequently enough, yes, it does.

The University of Michigan runs free shuttles from central campus to north campus. They don't check student IDs either, anyone can ride them.

[TulliusCicero]

Which is good. This is what you want in a developed space.

Your own temporary rental space of ~8*12 feet is a luxury. Riding on a bus or bike is not. The latter options should be accommodated with low or non-existent fees.

[Talanes]

There are schools that include passes for local transit in their tuition as well. CU Denver did it when I attended about a decade back, and San Francisco State started doing it recently as well.

[kodablah]

Universities often disproportionately distribute costs, especially with facilities that are not used by everyone. This should be treated no differently despite the anti-car (or anti-sports, or anti-leisure, or anti-gaming, or anti-phone, etc) sentiment of late.

[Wowfunhappy]

> Wouldn't it make sense that the university, that is charging the students all this money, ensure they have enough parking spaces to satisfy likely demand?

Does the school offer paid parking permits?

If so, why should students who don't need a parking spot (for whatever reason) need to subsidize those who do?

The high overall cost of tuition is a separate issue, and not one that can be solved by including even more services in the price.

[RHSeeger]

For the same reason that lots of other things are subsidized, paid for even if you don't use them

- school buses and the like

- sporting equipment and facilities

- library

There's lots of services that schools provide, and charge everyone for, because they think it's good for the student body as a while.

Maybe a more controversial one... a school that supplies free transit to/from the local night scene, so that people don't drive to/from bars while intoxicated. It's better for everyone, including locals, for this to exist. However, the non-drinkers, the ones who are nowhere near the night scene, get no benefit from it; they pay for it anyways. And a lot of people would say that's good, and a lot would say it's bad.

[pbhjpbhj]

Your examples all seem like things that are beneficial to all, and that all should use.

[RHSeeger]

> school buses and the like

Not useful to people that live on campus and don't need to travel off-site much.

> sporting equipment and facilities

Completely useless to a lot of people. I used the swimming pool in college exactly once, during the swimming class/test. I certainly didn't use the sports fields. I used the bowling alleys, but those were paid-to-use and not covered by the sports fee we had to pay.

> library

I certainly got a lot of benefit out of this. However, with the internet nowadays, I'm not sure I would if I was in school.

The point being, for many school services, everyone pays for them while only some people get a benefit. The scale of "some people" that benefit varies, but the concept doesn't.

[pbhjpbhj]

Better air quality, lower carbon-cost of transport benefit you even if you don't use it. Similarly for sporting facilities in a state with any sponsoring of medical needs (I'm in UK).

For me Library was a primary place to work (prepaid heat and light!), and access books that couldn't be used online or cost too much to have a private copy (or for which it was more economic not to get one, like you only needed it for a day/week) - but that was a while back. I can't really see even the majority of course books being online though, maybe I'm wrong?

[bootlooped]

The good thing about charging is that is discourages use of a finite resource, and encourages the use of cheaper and more environmentally friendly options like car pooling, public transit, etc... If you make something free people soak it up.

That said I'm not sure how much those nudges matter when people need to get to class, and they might already have a schedule too busy to coordinate car pooling, and maybe their town or city doesn't have very good public transit. All of those things applied to me when I was going to college. I just parked in the closest residential neighborhood, which should probably be seen as a negative side effect of charging students for parking on campus.