Each tag had a row of 12 "bubbles" and another grid of 31 "bubbles" covered with the silvered scratch-off stuff you find on lottery scratch tickets. To use one of these daily tags you would scratch off the bubble corresponding to the month and date you were parking.
I soon realized that the parking attendants weren't very observant and between that and the windshield, you could use one of those silver paint pens to "refill" in the bubbles after they had been scratched, use a fine-tipped Sharpie to draw the number back on the re-silvered bubble, and scratch off the next day.
Can't remember how long I did this and I seem to remember eventually getting a ticket but it was right around when my car finally died and the year was almost over. Either way, I could usually get a week or so out of those daily passes before a stray mark or penmanship error would ruin a tag and I'd have to start a new one. I'm pretty sure I got at least $50-100 worth of parking out of my little scam though.
Not proud but hey...I managed to graduate and not starve so, bonus!
I even spent a couple semesters waiting in the parking lot an hour after class. I would read a book, program, or study for that hour.
Once I was late, and visitors was full, so I parked in the regular parking, which promptly got me a ticket. I didn't pay, and they eventually sent the ticket to my address. I called the school and told them I wasn't responsible as I had sold the car to another student, and it was their ticket, not mine. They bought the story and removed the ticket.
Also, some schools try to discourage car ownership due to the number of student deaths associated with drunk driving to and from parties.
Second statement needs a source, and regardless it isn't a valid reason. Colleges don't decide how adults live their lives.
Also, collages accept students younger than 18 which are not adults and legally can't be treated as adults.
However, opportunity costs bump that as for example it lowers the density of the area.
Because "parking a car on campus" and "receiving an education" are different and only tangentially related things; maintaining parking spaces for people who want to do the former is an expense that is not born in accommodating the people who do the latter without the former, so those who wish to do both should pay more than those who wish to only do the latter.
"Going to the gym" and "receiving an education" are different and only tangentially related things; maintaining gym facilities are probably much more costly than maintaining a parking system, even if you include "meter maids."
If the school is able to maintain an entire gym, ripe with an indoor track, basketball court, swimming pool, not to mention the (non-free) classes that go along with it, without charging those who take advantage of such facilities (or, put another way, subsidized BY those who do not take advantage of such facilities), I think the school could do without charging students for parking. Visitors, sure; but students?
And there are plenty, plenty of services that schools offer for "free" because they are included in the tuition, that many students don't "take advantage" of (read: don't need/want).
For me, I'd like to be able to curate the benefits I get from the school. No, I do not want to get free condoms from the health center, but I would like free parking. I do not smoke so I do not need free nicotine patches, but I would like to go to the gym.
Of course this is a life long in my past, but it still irks me how many students are forced to learn how to game the system like this because they have to pay for parking. Perhaps not forced, but sometimes it's just not financially feasible for a zero-income college student to pay $9 a day to park on campus.
Drive your car in and take a ticket as normal. When it's time to leave, book a ZipCar for one hour. Grab its parking pass and use it to exit the garage with your car. Park on the street nearby, walk the pass back to the ZipCar.
Are there typically countermeasures in place for this? Match the pass to the license plate with ANPR? Don't allow an exit without a corresponding entrance? Sucks for the next person to use the ZipCar. But how will they know it was you? Are video archives good enough to find the plate associated with a particular card swipe without a ton of manual effort?
(Assume you're trying to store a car for a month or more. At a fairly normal Chicago visitor parking rate of $25 for 2 hours, that would cost $9,000.)
Edited to add: For the next common "game" on this line "why dont you just walk past and card swipe exit" you will note the cameras positioned at the card terminals at all of these lots for this issue. Basically they will have a record of: your license plates for the entry/exists (the sipes and video systems have timecodes that can be matched) and of your person walking by on foot to trigger the exit state.
The cost of the zip car + the hassle of booking the zipcar, walking from to it to grab the card, driving your car out and finding parking, then walking back to the car.
I would emphasize that this method requires finding parking outside the parking garage. Around where I live, that could be a long walk back to the garage (and paying a meter...)
When they caught him (he parked in the wrong lot or something) he admitted everything, paid $80, and offered to help them catch others doing the same thing.
He told them to change the end-of-day expiry time to 1 minute earlier than normal, tow everyone with a ticket that expires at the usual time.