You would think that to get some of the most coveted student tickets in the country, you'd have to be a student. You would think that verification of one's student status would be a prerequisite to purchasing Zona Zoo passes, which put holders' names into a lottery for men's basketball tickets.

In theory, you'd be right.

But in practice ... well, that's another story.

A Wildcat investigation found that of the 1,500 Zona Zoo pass holders who won basketball tickets, 20 are not students. These people, who are among the approximately 53,000 non students who hold CatCards because they're either staff, alumni or affiliated with the UA in some other way, simply presented their cards when they purchased the Zona Zoo pass.

The passes are theoretically available to students only, but by not requiring student status verification, ASUA and the athletics department created a giant loophole that could give tens of thousands of non students access to student tickets.

Obviously, this problem needs to be rectified before Zona Zoo passes become available next year.

One option is installing CatCard scanners similar to those in the Student Recreation Center. With a single swipe, employees can verify whether a CatCard holder is a student.

That's possible, but the cost of purchasing the equipment and wiring it to the appropriate database could make it too expensive for a process that only occurs once per year.

A better option would be to simply require students to bring a SAPR or current course schedule with their name on it when they purchase a Zona Zoo pass.

It's simple and would solve the problem. Non students won't have current SAPRs and they certainly couldn't falsify a class schedule.

The 20 non students who have basketball tickets make up only a tiny fraction of the total number of so-called student ticket holders. But unless ASUA, which created the Zona Zoo, and the athletics department can work together to rectify the problem, it will only get worse in coming years.

OPINIONS BOARD
Opinions are determined by the Wildcat opinions board and written by one of its members. They are Shane Dale, Kristina Dunham, Brett Fera, Caitlin Hall and Jeff Sklar.