Don't miss out on joining nearly 1,500 of your colleagues and peers at higher education's premier planning event of 2010, SCUP–45. The Society for College and University Planning's 45th annual, international conference and idea marketplace is July 10–14 in Minneapolis!

Here's your SCUP Link to "Debt Hunters: Is Your Campus Missing Out on Megabucks Worth of Unpaid Parking Tickets?"

Inspired by the University of Central Florida's tapping him for $35 for an unpaid parking ticket from a visit nearly three years ago, Inside Higher Ed writer Jack Stripling investigates and finds a trend: Better technology to identify scofflaws and concerted efforts to tap into buckets of money owed to it. Some even hire collection agencies. UCF hired a company to collect from a pool of nearly $400,000 in unpaid tickets and has already collected $71,000. It can be tricky though and you might irritate alumns.

Central Florida’s increased collection efforts predate the deep financial crisis that has led to dramatic budget cuts across the state, but Merck says it’s “serendipitous” that the university was searching for cash under its proverbial couch cushions just before the recession hit.

Florida’s State University System does not receive any state dollars for transportation and parking services, so the brunt of the cost for parking decks and shuttles is passed on to students through per-credit-hour fees and decal charges. Thus, by failing to recoup parking fines, the university ends up increasing the financial burden on students. So while chasing campus visitors across state lines for $35 may seem excessive, failing to do so is unfair to students who end up with the tab, Merck says.

“We owe it to our students to try to collect it,” he says.