De Smet Jesuit High School charges its students $50 every year for permits to park their cars on the school parking lot. If any car is found on the lot without a pass, the driver of that car will be forced to buy a parking pass and also charged a ten dollar fine, for a total of $60.

Many students dislike having to pay for a parking pass and do not know why they are required to pay for a parking pass at a school that they already pay $15,000 a year to attend.

Assistant Principal Mr. Mike Dressler administers most of the parking passes. “The money that we collect from parking passes goes toward the maintenance of the parking lot. Any time we have to paint it, seal it and [light it],” Mr. Dressler said.

This policy assumes that students have an extra $50 to spend on a parking spot when it could easily be a cost that is already added into tuition.

“It wouldn’t be fair to the students that don’t drive to pay the fee to park in the parking lot,” Mr. Dressler said.

Even though not every student uses the lot, maintaining the parking lot is still a part of keeping the school running.

The upkeep of the parking lot could be compared to the grass practice fields. Not everyone uses them, but our tuition money is still going toward the irrigation system and mowing service to keep the field in playing conditions. Not everyone uses the parking lot, but the school still has to pay a plow to clear snow and ice during the winter or come repaint the lines over summer break.

A solution to raise funds to maintain the lot might not be to make everyone pay for a pass, but to have a raffle or an auction to reserve the front couple rows of parking spots for the winner of the raffle or auction. Done effectively, a raffle for reserved spots could easily cover the costs of maintaining the lot, benefiting both students and school.

Infographic by Joe Cafazza