College Campus Valet

Moving off-campus is exciting and there seem to be countless benefits to prompt being further from campus: no more dorms, freedom, your own room. However, in todays age there is a large draw back to no longer living on campus—parking. As the number of students enrolling within universities sky-rockets, the parking lots are unable to keep up with such an increase and students are suffering. The National Center for Education Statistics reports that enrollment at secondary educational institutes has risen by 24%, from 16.6 million to 20.6 million. The number of full-time students rose to 28%, while the number of part-time students rose by 19%.

Christina Giordano reports common problems at the University of Illinois in Chicago to include:

• The price for parking in a semester is way too high • Free parking around UIC does not really exist • Built up frustration as parking is rarely available • You need to plan to make it to class on time

These issues were the same 10 years ago as they are even today; parking on campus = major problem. The prices for a parking pass per semester are astronomical, however, the main issue lies in the fact that the parking lots close to the busiest parts of campus are often full for years at a time or only available to staff. Another student discussing this issue detailed how he had requested a spot as a Freshman and it was not until Junior year in his second semester that he finally received it. There are some parking lots that one can always get a pass for, however, due to the lack of cap for distribution of passes, it can be difficult to find a spot right before a common class time. Many college campuses include a bus system to attempt to alleviate some

strain on the parking lots around campus, however, these are often overcrowded as well.

Recently, a well-known Texas university implemented a potential solution involving bicycles that one could rent through an app. While this may help with the overcrowding of bike racks, the expansion of the area around the campus causes this to be of little use to those who have moved more than twenty minutes away. Our previous blog discussed a solution for a lack of parking spots for a restaurant as including valet and after comparing the two problems, do you think that valet would be a potential solution to help college students get to class on time?

Thanks for taking time to read this blog and as always reach out to us for a demo!

The Vark Team