Colleges: Can U Learn at Drive-In U?

In a rueful moment, University of California President Clark Kerr once defined his three main headaches as "sex for the students, athletics for the alumni and parking for the faculty." Now sex and sport seem simple concerns, compared to parking—for everybody.

One of the biggest migraines is Kerr's own hemmed-in, 387-acre U.C.L.A. campus. Los Angeles' notoriously deficient public transportation cannot deliver the university's mostly commuter students; yet those who drive are forbidden to park on neighboring streets. So the school has been forced to build $2,800,000 worth of multilevel parking garages, plus other parking areas, which all take in $964,000...