Well, that may also have been a penalty but it wasn't one I faced. The only one I knew was the risk of being unable to register your vehicle in the next term.
But some people just never registered their vehicles, which was also an option. There was no electronic tool for the ticket givers (fellow students working for the school) to look up a vehicle. So instead of towing every violation, they just gave up. I knew a guy who had accrued a couple hundred tickets by the time he graduated, car wasn't under his name (his parents) so no penalties for him (from the school) if they'd tried to find the owner, and the school never pursued his parents for it.
It was not an effective system. The only people who actually had to pay for a parking permit were those who lived on campus because their cars would be there overnight, that's when cars would be towed if they lacked a current parking sticker. (I worked or studied on campus until 10 or 11pm most nights so I was paying for a permit.)
But some people just never registered their vehicles, which was also an option. There was no electronic tool for the ticket givers (fellow students working for the school) to look up a vehicle. So instead of towing every violation, they just gave up. I knew a guy who had accrued a couple hundred tickets by the time he graduated, car wasn't under his name (his parents) so no penalties for him (from the school) if they'd tried to find the owner, and the school never pursued his parents for it.
It was not an effective system. The only people who actually had to pay for a parking permit were those who lived on campus because their cars would be there overnight, that's when cars would be towed if they lacked a current parking sticker. (I worked or studied on campus until 10 or 11pm most nights so I was paying for a permit.)