A new policy that would require student ticket holders to present their University student ID before entering Michigan Stadium is scheduled to go into effect next fall.

The policy is designed to cut back on the amount of student tickets that fall into the hands of non-students.

"We want to make certain that students are in the student section, and we have had students tell our department that there are people in the student section that aren't students," Athletic Director Bill Martin said. "We want to make sure that every student has an opportunity to buy tickets to football ahead of everybody else."

While there are no exact figures, Martin said he has heard estimates that 10 to 20 percent of student tickets are sold to non-students.

"I've heard students give me estimates, we don't have one, but what we do is take a look at eBay and the other auction sites and look at the seat number and see where they are being offered," Martin said.

Because of the ID policy, the ticket office agreed not to place a cap of 20,000 on the number of student tickets available for the next football season, Marty Bodnar, director of ticket services, said in the memo obtained by The Michigan Daily.

According the memo, the idea of requiring student ticket holders to present an ID was originally considered during the 2000 football season, but instead a cap was placed on the number of student tickets offered.

"Students, including the leadership of MSA, voiced very strongly the desire not to limit the number of season tickets available to students," Bodnar said in the memo.

The memo also stated that students will still be able to give their tickets to other students, but if they want to offer their tickets to family and friends they will have to pay for the difference between the student price and the public price.

A similar policy was implemented at the University thirty years ago and it is also common practice among other Big Ten institutions.

"Several other universities - Penn State, Notre Dame, Nebraska - they all do it so we've looked at their programs and evaluate their strength and weakness," Martin said.

Martin added that student IDs will not be required at any other sporting events because there is not as high of a demand.

Department of Public Safety Spokeswoman Diane Brown said scalping tickets has been a situation that DPS has been dealing with for several decades.

"Scalping tickets is always a situation, especially cause we have the largest college-owned stadium, and we usually experience sellouts," Brown said. "That is a bigger deal because it is taking away the opportunity for somebody who is rightfully authorized to purchase tickets form getting into that game."

Brown added that the people who take advantage of selling tickets are those who try to make a huge profit by selling an entire season worth of tickets.

"It is not so much a problem with students trying to sell one or two tickets. It is those guys in front of the Union or who are selling them on e-bay that have been a lot more problematic,"

According to Michigan law the sale of tickets for more than their face value is punishable as a 90-day misdemeanor and $100 fine.

"You can sell your ticket for face value or less, it is when you try to sell your ticket for over face value that it is against the law," Brown said.