To the Editor:

I’m a freshman at Bowling Green State University, and I am also a Bowling Green local. While my parents live in town, I chose to live on campus for the authentic college experience.

However, what I have found during my time as an on-campus student is that BGSU holds a policy that, while inadvertent or not, is discriminatory against students who choose to live on campus but work off campus.

I paid $128 for an on-campus student permit, which was the only permit available to me. When I got out to long term (a.k.a. on-campus student) parking, I was initially concerned.

I would like to preface this by saying I do support commuter students and I am not arguing that they have fewer parking options.

However, there are only four lots for on-campus students, despite BGSU having a larger population of on-campus than commuter students. Three of the four lots are in fact off campus, and are at least a 20-minute walk. There are 24 commuter lots, most of which are mostly empty even during the day.

Even worse, the four lots for on-campus students are, as I have recently learned, always full. I don’t mean just one. I mean all of them are almost always full.

As someone who works off campus four days a week, this is a huge issue. Every time I get a spot, I come back from work and it is gone. My only option most of the time is to park in commuter lots, where I get increasingly large fines and the risk of a tow.

After speaking with parking, I was denied access.

I have since then visited the lots every day to document when they are full, and there have been multiple points when all the lots are full, leaving no space for my car — or any one else not on campus.

It seems to me that the university oversold passes for spots, and the main group to suffer is students who work off campus.

When the issue was brought to their attention by me and others, we were told there was nothing that could be done. What a sham. We all paid $128 dollars for nothing.

Lucinda Busselle

Bowling Green