Leave it to the Manhattan Mercury, of all places, to get to the bottom of the apparent student-ticket fiasco.  Also, leave it to them to put a typo in the headline of the story, sort of like the K-State Collegian did in 2005 when Coach Bill Synder...err...Snyder retired.

Apparently, there are a couple reasons the new system was adopted.  First, it cuts down on tickets being lost or stolen, which could be a problem when you pick up your sheet of tickets before the season starts.  I know we guarded our tickets with our lives freshman year in the dorms.  Also, it helps to manage student accounts on an individualized basis.  I'm not sure why that's an improvement, but I'm all for individualism!

From reading the story, it looks like the system was implemented with the best of intentions but ended up subject to the Law of Unintended Consequences.  The athletic department had the noble goals of streamlining the process and cutting down on ticket theft/misplacement, but didn't consider that a computer doesn't always allocate financial aid to the highest priority.  Those priorities, in order, are 

1.  Football tickets

2. Parking pass

3. Tuition

4. Fees

Thus some people weren't permitted to print their tickets by a computer, which is not persuaded by impassioned, nor logical, pleadings.  Let's hope this was a lesson that will lead to a fixing of the system for next year.