Parking Services,
I just want to start off and say I love Mississippi State with all of me. IMO we are the BEST SEC school and the BEST school in Mississippi. That being said, we need to talk about something very important, parking on campus.
The past year I have seen multiple complaints about Parking on campus here at Mississippi State every day, and trust me I have been one of the complainers on multiple occasions.
I'm going to start off by saying these parking passes are too expensive... $175 racks up when some students are paying $20,000 + for tuition PLUS all the additional expenses for the average college students. If I am paying $175 for a parking pass, I think I deserve a spot.
Mississippi State student, Tally Duke, made a twitter thread after she interviewed parking services in early September and the results are not shocking due to the problems arising from parking.
I've broken down this argument/letter by parking zones.
Resident South
One of the better places to park on the Mississippi State campus. But it isn't perfect, various students have said that the zone needs to be split into east and west and with fewer staff spots along Magruder St. But all and all this is one of the better zones on campus.
Resident North
This is one of the WORST parking zones on campus. The north residential side of campus is spread out across the whole northeast corner of campus consisting of 10 residence halls and 13 parking lots for each dorm, which logically makes sense. But this system does NOT work. In my opinion, the north zone parking has to be split up more than what it is. One pass for all of these parking lots is not enough... I've had to park 10 minutes away from my dorm on multiple occasions and to me, this is not fair. Not to mention the quality of the parking lots is terrible and I haven't even touched on how this zone is affected by any gameday... I could make a whole other article about the north zone of campus, but this will do for now.
Commuter West
I don't hear many complaints about commuter west, but when I do it is about the lack of spots. Once again people have circled these parking lots for hours and are forced to park in the all permit zones.
Commuter East
This is also one of the worst parking zones on campus. This is where the majority of students park due to the convenience of the location and how close it is to the majority of the student living apartment complexes. People have arrived almost 3 hours before their class and still cannot find a parking spot and are forced to park further away in an all permit zone. The biggest complaint about commuter east is the quality of the parking lots and the damage to the cars.
Commuter North
Commuter North is also one of the worst places to park on campus. Its location is super inconvenient and far from the heart of campus, not to mention basketball and baseball game days are impossible. North is also is the most oversold zone, which makes it hard to find a spot in the peak hours of class.
Greek
I've never heard ANY complaints about greek parking, they have it pretty good.
Mississippi State I love you, but we need better parking.
