A University Student Paid A $110 Parking Ticket In Pennies Because The Money Wasn't Going Towards His School

Metro- A round of applause for the man who paid a parking fine with 11,000 pennies.

Stephen Coyle, 26, was slapped with the $110 (£71) ticket at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte (UNCC), US.

But the vice president of the university’s mathematics club discovered that 80 per cent of the uni’s fines go to other schools.

Not satisfied with this, the student gathered 11,000 pennies over the course of a few days, stuffed them into $25 boxes and paid the fine.

He penned an email to USA TODAY College in which he argued why college students are ‘supplementing the funding of public schools when this is actually the responsibility of taxpayers’.

The student received a response from UNCC officials who patted him on the back for taking in interest in the working of local Government.



I wanted to applaud this kid's efforts. I really did. I would like to think that it wasn't just my college campus that passed out parking tickets like they were Halloween candy. I swear, rent-a-cops would have sting operations. You couldn't put your car anywhere on campus, that had very limited parking to begin with, for more than two minutes without getting some stupid fucking ticket from university police. Anything that makes the lives of the beneficiaries of those fines harder is good in my book. That includes paying a $110 entirely in pennies. Paying someone solely in pennies is the most disrespectful thing you can do to a person. I would rather have someone spit directly in between my eyes than place more than 4 pennies in my hand at once. I've probably left a couple hundred dollars on the ground over the course of my life just to avoid being the poor person picking up rusty pennies. 

Like I said, I wanted to applaud his efforts. You know, until i realized how much of an effort it actually was. Until I realize this dork was actually concerned with where the money from his fine was going after he paid it. Who in their right mind cares where their money goes as long as it isn't in their pocket anymore? What's done is done. I don't care if the money from my '$5 Footlong' was going to finance Jared's child pornography ring. That's not my problem. He was going to get that money anyway. Just like these public schools, that Stephen is so defiant towards supplementing financially, were going to get their money whether it was from his ticket or not. You're 26 years old dude. I think paying in pennies is a nice little prank when someone pisses you off, but I am certainly not hunting down 11,000 bronze coins to do it. Jesus Christ man. Make a friend. Get a hobby. Pick up a drug habit. Anything to avoid being the guy that's counting out $100 worth of change one cent at a time. I would think that even the Vice President of the Mathematics Club could put his talents to better use than trying not to slip up counting to 5 figures. Maybe throw some of that bronze towards getting yourself a hooker before you end up sad and alone with hands that smell like dirty metal.