Should I Bring My Car To College?

When you move in to your dorm, you can leave your car behind. Photo credit: Nazareth College, Flickr. 

Question: Do you need a car for college? I am currently a high school senior, next year I’ll be in college living in a dorm. Do I need a car?

Answer: There are plenty of definitive lists of stuff to pack for your dorm room with everything ranging from a mini-fridge to extra-long twin sheets, but things get complicated when it comes to whether or not you should drive your ride to your new home away from home.

First off, are you even allowed a car on campus? For example, at the University of Miami, located in a quiet, mostly-residential section of Coral Gables, Fla., many students do have cars but first-year freshman who live on campus are prohibited from purchasing a parking permit. By contrast, for a student at an urban school like New York University, basically there is no university parking option, regardless of class or year. Parking at NYU presents exactly all of the same challenges as anyone looking to park in New York City: expensive, inconsistent garages and very complicated rules around the limited street parking.

Find out what your school’s policy means for you before you leave home. Most are available online or you can go straight to the source and contact the campus public safety department.

Public Safety Officer Richard Gillard at the College of Charleston, a school with a small, urban campus in Charleston, S.C., is pretty clear about his opinion: