Economics Essay, Research Paper

It is pretty common that Universities use a system of seniority rather than an auction for getting parking spots at campus. An auction system will give parking spots to those who value them the most; however, this system actually create an inefficient outcome.

Can we imagine if our university staffs or the professors do not get the parking spots from the auction? Can they make a good excuse for being late for class because they don t have a parking spot? Faculty staffs work at school everyday and also employed by school, so they should have priority to get the spot as they are providing education and services to the student. Besides, there might be a possibility that some professor may quit the job when the bidding price is over than his budget. Then the school will lose a good teacher. If you calculate the amount lost in productivity due to faculty and staff searching for parking spaces, then you will able to identify the true cost because of the parking problems on campus. For instance, one professor teaches 50 students in a class, if he/she is often late for class because of searching for parking space, then these 50 students are learning less because the professor has less time to teach. Conversely, if one of the students were late, he/she will not affect the professor s teaching schedule or the other students. Therefore, professor and staffs have more priority of the spot than the students. If the University want its employees to function efficiently, they should provide appropriate parking spots for them first.

|How about the graduate student, the seniors, juniors and freshmen? Most of the graduate students and senior students are required to take some specific courses or night classes, and need to do a lot of research writing, it is better to offer them a parking for convenience. In contrast, there is variety of classes for freshmen to choose in their first year, so they might not necessary to take night classes or other specific classes. In fact, many freshmen living in the dorm on campus, where it is just few minutes away from campus. So they actually value the parking the least. About the system of auction, some students cannot afford to pay the parking spot when the bid price is too high even if they value it most.

However, the value of parking spot may sometime be overvalued. For example, if we are using the seniority system, the regular price for parking spot is $500 for three months, which is reasonable to many students. If we use the auction system instead, the parking spot may be bid up to $600, $1000 or even more. In this case, the parking spot may be overvalued. Besides, the monitoring cost will be pretty high since it is costly to set up an auction. Also, they have to hire a person in charge of the auction, which is a waste of time and money. Conversely, a system of seniority only requires applicants to fill out a simply form, and the data will be processed automatically. It is fast, convenient and costless to determine who meets the parking requirements.

In conclusion, the auction system seems to bid up the parking price which give an image to the public of making money. Conversely, the seniority system is fair to the seniors and works efficiency. Therefore, we can understand that why CMU will use the system of seniority rather than auction.