Many of us can remember the freshman frustration of not being able to have cars on campus. Unless you had a special exception, like having more than 20 credits, being an agriculture student or finding an upperclassman friend kind enough to let you park at their place, sophomore year meant you were out of the proverbial doghouse and able to really explore East Lansing from the comfort of your car.
There are plenty of universities that offer freshman parking. The universities of Grand Valley, Saginaw Valley, Central Michigan and Western Michigan are just a few.
Although MSU continues to deny freshmen parking options, due to the determination and entrepreneurship of two MSU students, a lot called SpartyPark will now be available for freshmen to park at.
After the initial, “of course someone comes up with this after my freshman year,” you might wonder if it’s too good to be true.
And, to be honest, it might be.
While the idea is something many of us are kicking ourselves for not thinking of first, SpartyPark costs freshmen $399 for the whole year, and the lot is a quarter mile from the Brody Neighborhood dorms — hardly ideal.
For comparison, the commuter lot costs $98 per semester, and parking on campus lots is at most $292 a year.
A typical part-time student job is 15 hours a week at minimum wage. It would take most students about a month’s worth of work to pay off just parking, unless Mom and Dad chip in.
Economics junior Ben Myers, the founder of SpartyPark, said in an interview that he’s passionate about helping freshmen because he knows what it’s like to be one, and that’s great.
But it’s a bit exaggerated to say that he’s helping freshmen and making MSU a better place by offering an expensive parking permit that could potentially be a 45 minute walk away.
His life savings have gone into this, and there surely are plenty of start-up fees, zoning permits and maintenance costs he’s had to cover. He’s putting all he’s got into this business, but the goal of business is to maximize profits, potentially hurting wallets in the process.
Myers is offering freshmen an option that they didn’t really have before, and that is admirable. However, the cost of a permit at SpartyPark is a lot to ask from students who likely know little about our campus.
No one can blame him — his innovation should be applauded. As an economics junior already growing a business, he’s clearly driven and intelligent.
But some incoming freshmen will hear “parking at MSU” and scramble at the opportunity we never had without fully understanding how huge our campus is.
A quarter of a mile from Brody could be really convenient — for students that live in Brody. Some poor freshman might buy a pass and end up in Hubbard Hall.
Even though the distance is doable, having a car on the opposite end of campus helps pretty much only for trips back home, and not the heightened level of independence through transportation they might have expected.
For students that live farther away and don’t want their parents to have to spend an entire day driving to pick them up, SpartyPark’s nearly $400 pass might be economically viable.
Freshmen might not use their cars as much as they would have expected to, but at least they would save their parents time and gas money. The students that live close to campus and want to utilize SpartyPark for regular transportation, however, might be disappointed.
We’re living on a huge campus. Parking is limited. SpartyPark offers freshmen something consistent that no one else can. And it makes sense for a company to charge extra for a premium service like freshman parking, that’s business. But a company run by two MSU students claiming to want to help freshmen should want to charge their peers a little less.
