Students who wish to have a car with them while attending college are finding the going more and more difficult as colleges across the nation. Some schools have a blanket ban — forbidding all freshmen students from having cars on campus — while others are using various enticements to discourage students from bringing their cars from home.

Schools With Restricted Or Banned Parking

At the University of Miami (FL), incoming freshmen can bring a number of personal items with them to school including a laptop, gameboy, and other electronic devices, but the school now forbids freshmen from bringing their car.  The school provides bicycles for rent and touts Zipcar, a private company that rents cars to college students as ways for students to get around.

Bowdoin College in Brunswick, ME also bans first year students from having a car while attending school. The school admits that they want to improve the college’s environmental image with Dean of Student Affairs Tim Foster explaining that the decision was specifically designed to make Bowdoin greener.

The University of New England has yet to ban cars from campus but they are offering freshmen free use of bikes to help them get around. At the same time, the school jacked up the parking fee for freshmen from $80 per academic year to a whopping $300. Like many other colleges and universities across the US, the company has made arrangements with Zipcars to provide transportation options for those students still wanting access to a car.

In Wisconsin, Ripon College has offered a nice incentive to freshmen students who agree not to drive to school: the college provides a brand-new Trek 820 mountain bike, a Trek Vapor helmet and a Master Lock U-Lock - all to keep - if they pledged to leave their cars at home. I’m not sure how that works in a long and tough Wisconsin winter, but Ripon’s plan seems to be the most generous one out there.

One way to reward good academic progress is to give the right of having a car on campus only to those students who have good grades. In 2006, North Carolina A&T University issued a blanket driving ban to incoming freshmen, but promised to lift that ban for the Spring semester for students with a 3.2 or better GPA. The Greensboro school long had a problem with providing enough spaces for students to park on its urban campus.

Are Schools Going Too Far?

Although colleges and universities can basically set whatever policies they choose when it comes to their students, the difficulties and safety issues for some remains a concern. Foul weather can hamper bike riding while leaving campus at night can put students in danger, especially female undergrads who need the safety of their car for transportation to and from campus.

Finally, though not having a car on campus isn’t a hardship for some, colleges could unwittingly pull the welcome mat back from those students who insist on having a car with them. After all, if you pay $20,000 yearly for school, there is a certain level of convenience that you expect to have, resulting in some students going elsewhere for their academic pursuits.

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Tags: bicycles, bikes, Campus Cars, college freshmen, Zipcar

Here on SayCampusLife, we’ve been sharing through our Campus Cars category, various vehicles we think might be of interest to college students. Mostly vehicles that have a few things in common — small, fuel efficient, and cheap to buy.

Most certainly, owning a car while attending college isn’t the sensible solution for every student, particularly those whose campus is located in the city. Mass transit and foot traffic will take you where you need to go without having to worry about alternate side of the street parking, vandalism, and maintenance expenses.

An option for students who occasionally need a car, but don’t want to be bothered with buying and maintaining one is renting their wheels. Companies like Hertz, Avis, and Enterprise come to mind, but therein lies the problem — some rental agencies will only lend their vehicles to drivers who are at least 25 years old, several years beyond the age of the typical college student.

Where there is a need, there is also opportunity and one company, Zipcar, is doing its part to fill that need.

Zipcar works by allowing registered members to borrow a car (like the pictured MINI Cooper) for a few hours or for an entire day and return that car to the place borrowed when done. Gas and insurance is included, meaning that all a driver has to do is worry about driving and leave the fill ups and paperwork to Zipcar.

As you might guess, college campuses are a popular place for Zipcars, with more than 70 schools partnering with the company to offer car rentals to students. Schools such as Rutgers, the University of North Carolina, University of Southern California, and others participate, allowing students who are 21 and above the chance to rent a car.

No, you can’t get a Zipcar if you’ve had more than two moving violations in the past three years or a single DUI incident during the past seven years. Nor can you rent a car for more than six days at a time. Still, with these restrictions in place, Zipcar could be the only rental option for some college students.

Though this article isn’t an endorsement of Zipcar, SayCampusLife does recognize that renting your campus car may be the smartest option for some young drivers.

Tags: Avis, car rental, Enterprise, Hertz, Zipcar