The idea of free parking is almost too controversial to discuss. On one hand, I want to defend the students who deserve fully free education. On the other hand, I want to defend our school that has so little money already even though $3 a day is necessary.

In the student perspective, it’s easy to say, we don’t appreciate any additional fees added onto the fees already due in order to attend a college like De Anza.

According to the Foothill/De Anza faculty handbook, fees for faculty are limited and almost completely nonexistent.

According to the De Anza College website, employee cars “must display a parking decal provided by the Foothill-De Anza Community College District.”

It is unfair though for students to pay for parking when faculty are not paying or paying a fraction of it.

Every quarter the expenses add up for students when purchasing books for every class, the classes themselves, school supplies, food if you are hungry between classes and not to mention gas.

I live on the foothills in East San Jose so that’s a distance. To help you get a visual of location if you are not familiar, I live not in the nice blue hills that surround the west side of our college, but the complete opposite hills.

It can sometimes take up to an hour to get to school and an hour back. After a couple days the gas just vanishes. The rising prices of gas doesn’t help either but what can we do.

After the long trip I have to stress about getting a parking slip because I forgot parking is only free the first week of school. I end up late to class.

An alternative to this problem is the De Anza parking permits. They retail for $29.90, after taxes and you can purchase them through your MyPortal.

Simply go to apps and click the student registration icon. There, under the “Registration tools” tab, you will see an option that says “Order DeAnza parking permit”. Click that and proceed according to the directions.

It’s a little pricey, but hey, the college has to make money too. With the drop in student enrollments lately, our school seems like it needs to make all the money it can get.

I’m not angry about paying the price of the permit, I just wish it was a little more light in price range so we could purchase more things like school merchandise.