New parking pass lottery is fair but causes stress for students

By Iman Bakhit

Staff Writer

Mira Costa has implemented a new parking pass lottery system that will make commuting less chaotic for some upperclassmen while throwing the commuting routine of others upside down, due its costly prices, risk of tardiness, and build up of stress.

The parking pass lottery determines whether or not a student receives a parking spot on campus and where that specific spot is located. The school enters students who apply for the pass into a lottery which shuffles all the names and randomly selects this number of students to receive the pass. If a student successfully wins the lottery, they have to claim it at the office and pay a fee for the year or one semester.  

According to a survey conducted by La Vista, 64% of upperclassmen drive themselves to school everyday. The upperclassmen who lose the lottery would have their daily commuting routine disrupted if they are denied a spot on campus. This puts those select students at risk because they would have to spend an extensive amount of time looking for parking spaces within a close distance of Costa.

According to a survey conducted by La Vista, 62% of Costa students do not believe that the lottery selection process is the best way to give students their parking passes because. The implementation of the lottery puts one group of driving students at an advantage by being provided with guaranteed parking spots, but inflicts stress on the remainder of students who apply for the pass. With a multitude of students trying to find a parking spot near one of the four entrance points of Costa, they may become absent or tardy which could affect the students attendance record.

According to ThreeSixtyJournalism.org, a nonprofit program at College of Arts and Sciences at the University of St. Thomas, parking spots in general are costly,  thusly making it a financial burden for some. This puts the students who drive to school at a disadvantage compared to those who don’t drive because they have to pay a costly fee for the passes.

As concluded by the survey, 88% of upperclassmen stated that it would be extremely difficult to find another parking option if they did not win the lottery, because of the limited amount of parking available besides the student parking lot. Therefore, obtaining a parking pass is vital to ensure that one always has a place to park.

However, even though many of the upperclassmen felt hopeless about the lottery, the majority agree that the lottery is a fair way of selecting which students get the privilege of parking on campus according to the survey.

Although the lottery may be a fair way of distributing parking on campus, it causes more stress than relief. The parking pass lottery makes students feel unsure and leads to stress.