During any other summer, getting MSU football student vouchers in the mail is one of the reminders that fall - and the beginning of the next school year - is coming. This year is different. Instead of printed vouchers, which can be exchanged at the stadium gate for tickets, electronic admittance will be used.

The system is basically the same: When a student buys season football tickets, the student ID card will be scanned at the gate and a ticket will be given out for admittance. The only catch is it's harder to give or sell tickets to someone else because of the ID.

This might cut down on scalping in theory, but we're skeptical about whether this was ever a problem in the first place. Granted, most people who aren't rabid fans will miss a few games and get rid of their tickets somehow. Usually the tickets find their way into the hands of a friend or some other student, who pays a reasonable price for them.

It's not realistic to say there is a big scalping problem with student vouchers. Perhaps the MSU vs. University of Michigan game is an exception. But this only happens every other year at Spartan Stadium, and electronic admittance won't solve the problem of nonstudent tickets being scalped.

Besides, student tickets aren't worth that much to begin with. After all, what adult wants to sit next to a bunch of drunken, rowdy students?

For the most part, electronic admittance will be an annoyance. It will mean students must waste tickets when they don't attend games.

The athletic department might benefit, though. Fewer tickets given as gifts or sold at a reasonable price between students could mean that more students will have to buy season tickets to see games. Also, the stadium could be filled with open seats rather than people, which would be a big publicity problem for the Spartans.

On the other hand, it could turn away students who only plan on seeing half of the games in the first place. If the vouchers can't be resold, there's no use in buying ones that won't be used. Attendance might even drop in the future.

There's also the possibility of other drawbacks. Using student IDs for admittance might slow up the lines to get into the stadium. As many seniors will notice if they look in their wallets, the IDs aren't always in mint condition, so they might have to be swiped a few times for the card reader to accept them.

Another consideration is the danger that students might lend their IDs to their friends, increasing the chance of the cards being lost. This might increase the rate of identity theft, and at the best, cost students money. Student ID cards cost $20 to replace - not cheap by any means.

On the bright side, the electronic admittance scheme will save paper.

All things considered, though, we feel students could be saved some with a return to the old system.