Parking at the University of Missouri–Kansas City Volker Campus is a nightmare. UMKC administration knows that 93% of its students commute to campus, which makes reliable parking a necessity for most students. Students are required to pay a minimum of $135 for a parking permit, with multi-semester options costing several hundred dollars. Putting money into our school isn't inherently a bad thing, but if students are paying this much for the ability to park on campus, why has the university seemingly put so little effort into making sure we get the parking we paid for?

While parking is understandably a difficult problem to solve, students should not be fooled into believing that nothing can be done to alleviate it. It is unacceptable for students to arrive more than 30 minutes before class and still be unable to find parking in the Cherry Street Parking Garage or elsewhere on campus. Students should not have to choose between arriving excessively early, circling campus hoping a spot opens, or risking being late to class after already paying for a parking permit.

There are solutions UMKC could explore. The university could lower parking permit prices to better reflect the availability of parking, adjust course scheduling so that such a large number of students are not required to be on campus at the same time, better coordinate enrollment and class schedules with parking capacity, or limit the number of permits sold based on actual parking availability. These solutions may not eliminate the problem entirely, but students deserve to see meaningful efforts to improve it. We deserve an administration who cares about student issues.

We are paying for parking access, and we expect UMKC to take responsibility for making that access reasonably available. Students want solutions, greater transparency about parking capacity and permit sales, and acknowledgment from the UMKC administration that the current situation is not acceptable.