Maryland Newsline

By Kathleen Johnston Jarboe
Capital News Service
Tuesday, Jan. 22, 2002

The University of Maryland at College Park and the city of College Park together issued about 160,000 parking tickets in calendar year 2000 and collected more than $3.5 million in ticket revenue in FY2001. That ranks it the highest in ticketing and revenues in an informal Newsline survey of 11 universities and their host towns. Newsline looked at colleges where student enrollment closely approximated the town population's, since such an enrollment has the potential to overwhelm town infrastructures and prompt a response from town leaders. 

The universities were selected from the U.S. Department of Education’s Fall Enrollment 1998 survey, which ranked 100 U.S. universities according to their enrollments. Those chosen most closely approximated Maryland’s enrollment relationship with its town: Its enrollment is 134.6 percent larger than its host town’s population. Purdue’s student enrollment was 134.7 percent of its town’s population.  Texas A&M's enrollment-to-town-population percentage was the lowest of the schools surveyed, at 63.9 percent.

Sources: Population numbers were taken from the 2000 Census, and enrollment figures were taken from the U.S. Department of Education’s survey. Parking data collected was for the most recent year available between 1999 and 2001.

Copyright © 2002 University of Maryland College of Journalism