Parking passes at Northern Kentucky University are $96 for students, but there are other alternatives to paying full price for a parking permit.
One student may have found a way around this price for parking.
Matt Horton, a senior graduating this fall, does not own a parking pass because he didn’t want to pay $96 for one semester. “I wasn’t about to pay that price when I was graduating in December,” Horton said. Instead, he figured out a way around the system. Everyday before class, he drives to the information booth on Nunn Drive and receives a free one day permit. “It takes about 30 seconds. I show the person my license and they write me a pass for that day,” he said.
Horton goes to school Monday through Friday and practices this routine on a daily basis.
“The guy at the booth said they might start charging me a dollar a day. For me it’s still cheaper than buying a parking pass at that price.”
According to the parking office, the policy at NKU is to allow students to receive three temporary passes per semester and they are supposed to get charged at the information booth.
John Gaffin, an information booth employee, said, “I can’t keep track of everyone that gets a temporary pass every day. It is impossible to recognize everyone’s face that drives through.” Every driver who gets a temporary pass does get logged into a parking catalog which documents the persons name and the date they received it. “The catalog is to document how many passes were given out each day.
We don’t keep track to charge students,” Gaffin said.
Therefore, everyone who doesn’t get charged for the temporary pass simply gets to park free.
In the University Traffic and Parking Regulations Manual, it says nothing about faculty, staff or students being charged for temporary permits.
It does not say how many times they can receive these passes. In Horton’s case, he has received a free pass for nine weeks in a row, totaling 45 passes.
Some students at NKU had no idea they could receive a temporary pass. Matthew Caudill left his pass in his mother’s car one day and was charged $35 for parking without a permit.
“If I knew that I could have received a temporary pass I would have never gotten a ticket,” he said.
There is another alternative for those students graduating and that don’t want to pay full price for parking.
NKU offers partial refunds to graduating students who won’t be coming back to NKU after December. In the manual, it says refunds will be made only to graduates.
These students must return the hang-tag when they request a refund with proof of graduation.
Students will receive a $48 refund, exactly half of the full price for the parking permit.
Traci Storey, a senior this semester, was not informed of this refund when she purchased her pass.
“When I went to the Bursars Office to pay for the permit they told me there was nothing I could do. They told me that I had to pay full price even though this was my last semester,” she said.