Parking Pass Prices Too Expensive for Students

By Evan Shertzer –

People pay taxes, the government receives the tax money and the government then gives the money to the schools to build stuff. The schools then build and construct buildings and parking lots, and yet the schools still make the students and parents pay for parking passes to park at the school that they already paid for through taxes.

So why do the kids pay for parking passes? The school should not be charging a fee to park at a place that was already paid for through tax money. The students aren’t even told where the money goes and so the schools should assign students parking spaces instead of making them pay for it.

Schools are funded by taxes from people paying money toward the school district depending on which area they live in. If schools need more money or funding, they should either try to pass higher taxes or ask the government for more money. Making students pay for parking passes is a sneaky way the school district has figured out to bring in more income. The taxes of the people who send their kids to Penn Manor and also funding from the state pay for the buildings, construction and parking lots, and the kids shouldn’t also be charged for what their parents are paying or have paid for.

A parking lot for students at a school. Photo from

For some students at Penn Manor, the $40 to park the entire year comes straight out of their pocket and that for some is an entire week’s work. Even though Penn Manor does provide transportation to school for all kids and truthfully doesn’t even need to allow kids to even park at Penn Manor, what would the school do about having all the kids stay for sports after school? There is a need for the parking spaces at Penn Manor so they don’t have to get buses to drive kids home after sport’s practices or games.

Parking passes at Penn Manor have been around for some time, and if the math is done, the paving for the parking lot is most likely paid off by now. The administrators should no longer be charging students from something that has already been paid for. The extra income from parking spaces might have been a necessity at the beginning after the parking lot was paved, but now it is just some extra cash for the school.

The administrators and school board staff should no longer be making students pay the fee. If the school needs more money, they should be either trying to raise taxes or be asking the government for more money. It is time for the students to stand up and stop paying for parking passes. The eleventh and twelfth grade students should be assigned parking passes according to their age and should no longer pay. If the cost continues or rises, it would just be taking advantage of the students.

8 thoughts on “Parking Pass Prices Too Expensive for Students”

  1. Land isn’t free. No matter what, that land could be put to some other use. Other uses could generate money. Most likely the parking pass fees help cover the opportunity costs for that land.

    Also you failed to consider that although the parking lot paving expenses have been covered, it still takes money to maintain the lot. For example, it is not free to have the parking lot plowed and salted after each snow storm.

    My solution to your argument saying that some students need a parking space to ensure that they can drive home after an extra curricular activity: eliminate all extra curricular activities. They are a waste of school funding, and it would be better if they were to be privatized. If this solution is not desired, students could take the same approach as they did before driving themselves was an option–have a parent or guardian pick them up.

  2. If $40 a week is your income then you aren’t working hard enough and your argument is invalid. Also in the spirit of the article, taxes taxes taxes.

  3. in response to this article, 40 is cheap. i paid 75 at my school and its in Arizona. the only maintenance done to it is getting it paved every other year. so your lucky it only costs 40.

  4. Wow that’s cheap I have to pay 45 dollars a trimester 135 dollars a year in the small city of Farmington, mn.

  5. My school chages $50 for one who year, but I’m very inerested and curious to know where school’s are spending the money. If I’m not mistaken, kast year our school spen $2,000,000 on new urf for the football field ad half a set of new bleachers. In my opinion it was very uneeded and a waste when textbooks are needed and other important things could be bought.

  6. Wow u guys pay wayyyyy to much. I don’t drive to school but they charge 25 bucks pluse keep a gpa of 2.5

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