by: Alex Wong and Amaya Baker

Photographed by: Alex Wong

Commuting is a very common thing at Sacramento State University, as over half of Sac State students (approximately 70% of Sac State students) are commuters. Sacramento State had over 31,000 total students in 2025, and over 24,000 students were full-time students.

On campus, Sac State has five parking structures, each are multi-level buildings along with smaller outside parking lots spread around mainly on the south end of the campus. There are around 5,000 total parking spaces that are first come first serve.

Daily parking permits cost around $8-10 while the semester parking permits cost around $200. Parking permits are available for all the parking lots and parking structures. There is also faculty/staff parking and some parking structures have sections where it’s faculty only.

Commuting can be challenging and can change students’ daily routines with traffic and limited parking. The time of day also plays an effect on where to park and when to leave. Many students have to leave hours before their class just to get there on time with traffic and searching for available spaces. Depending on the time of day, leaving parking structures can also take a while as it can take up to 30 minutes just leaving the structure.

Many students have experienced incidents with tight spaces and poor parking positioning from other people as busy parking structures can get crammed.

“I feel like the parking fee is a little bit overcharged. I feel like it’s not really worth how much you’re paying for-for reference- I feel like parking lot 1 has a lot of tight spaces, and I feel like no one should be paying that much just to park in a tight space,” Arielle Ly, a third year communications major at Sacramento State University.

The time of day affects your route and how long it may take you to get to your next location. Getting to school is usually at its busiest between 7:30 am and 9:30 am as there’s a lot of traffic with people also going to school or to work downtown. When leaving campus, the busiest times when leaving Sac State occur around 3-5 pm. Depending on the time of day you are going and how far you are, the ETA is usually longer when heading or leaving Sac State than faster.

Based on personal experiences, Parking Structure II (2) is most convenient to get to classes as it’s closest to the University Union, but it’s the busiest and most packed parking structure as it could take over 20 minutes just to find a parking spot. Parking structure I (1) could be convenient for classes in certain buildings and most convenient for sports events as it’s closest to the softball field and tennis courts. Parking Structure III (3) is the overall best parking structure as it has more levels and a lot more available parking spaces throughout the day, but it doesn’t have the most convenient location, as it’s closest to the WELL.