Seton Hall Parking Stuck in Reverse
By Maxwell James
Opinion Writer
Seton Hall hosts 5,600 undergraduate students, and seemingly every two are occupied by faculty while another two are surface lots, meaning every car must be moved during snowfall.
Seton Hall decided to build a new admissions and event space building named “Bethany Hall” located at the front of campus. It is used mainly for special events and as the admissions office,. Both of these offices were put into the new, sleek building, distinct from the rest of campus, to attract donations from alumni and tuition checks students to fund what some consider to be irresponsible spending on cosmetic maintenance of the campus grounds which may have been responsible for the removal of the Seton Hall name from the medical school.
More importantly, Bethany Hall was built on a former parking lot, further restricting on-campus parking to the surface lot behind Xavier/Complex and parking deck floors 2-5.
To make matters worse, in Spring 2019, SHU Parking Services red lighted-parking on South Orange Ave next to campus because there was no longer a need for it. Students may disagree with that assertion.
The issues with Seton Hall not having parking makes sense because in 1865, when the school was established, only the super-rich had multiple horse-drawn carriages and, as a result, kids did not bring one to college and parking was not an issue.
Seton Hall attracts a large number of tuition checks students from all over the world but forgets that they must get to campus somehow. There are 4 classes of students when it comes to parking services: Nursing/Education majors, Seniors, Medical issues and non-eligible tuition checks students.
If you are not one of those protected classes of students, then prepare to pay hefty amounts to park somewhere in South Orange or at a student’s house.
In 2018, the annual resident parking pass (8/15-5/31) cost $400 for the opportunity to park for about 285 days total (including breaks). This comes to an average daily cost of $1.60.
Students who want to obtain temporary parking passes good for 24 hours must pay $10. It does not cost the school $10 for a car to park on campus, nor does the annual resident parking pass cost come anywhere near it. So why is it so expensive? (Note, that was rhetorical and there isn’t a good answer).
Parents are the people who really get the short end of the stick with Seton Hall’s parking situation because they are faced with 3 options: fly their kid home, drive to pick them up, or leave you kid at school for break. None of these options are perfect, but Seton Hall offers no relief for students faced with the issue that they are too far for mom and dad to pick them up but too close to justify flying home often. This is where the school should provide access to parking for those students.
Identifying a mileage minimum for this type of student would allow parents to relax and not worry about taking work off to pick up their child or buy last minute airfare for their child. Even if the permit was slightly more expensive on an annual basis, the small premium would pay dividends much exceeding it when the child is able to be more independent from the parents.
Seton Hall would do well to be more connected to its student body and their needs given both the large tuition bill and demographics of the students coming to the school given that almost 65% of students received some form of federal student aid.
Hopefully, the new president will shift Seton Hall into drive and move the parking situation forward by listening to student’s wishes.
Contact Maxwell at maxwell.james@student.shu.edu