In response to the two mass e-mails sent to every MSU student and staff member the last two weeks, urging them to e-mail their state Legislature to reduce cuts made to our university, I would like to propose the following solution to the school's financial problems: more parking fines.

Employ a few more parking Nazis and give them total ticketing freedom. On the weekends, they could write $25 tickets to everyone waiting in line for tailgating at the Wilson tennis courts from midnight until 7 a.m.

There's at least half a million in revenue during the football season alone.

They could hike up the costs for parking lots, too. After the city finishes driving all of the students farther north of Lake Lansing Road, every student will be driving into campus anyway. That would give them another big bonus come winter and spring.

The university really isn't doing a good job of communicating with the city of East Lansing on this topic either.

The university does an excellent job forcing students to move off campus and letting the city share in the newfound wealth of ticketing.

They just haven't taken that extra step and asked for some of that money in return. After all, shouldn't the city offer some support to the university for all it has done?

As it turns out, maybe we shouldn't contact our Legislature because the solutions are right under our noses.

Students are just going to have to pay a little bit more tuition (like that's a new trend or something) and start really paying for our parking mistakes.

God knows we haven't paid enough.

Trent Maier
electrical engineering senior