Do you realize what students have to do to go? They oversell the section so students are not guaranteed seats. This causes several problems. For big games you need to stand outside for hours and still risk being turned away. After that happens a couple times and you realize certain groups have the system rigged, it isn't worth the time and effort to try and stand in line. It is not like it was "back in your day" where you had a guaranteed seat. It is a ******** system that really drives students away.
The only issue I see with the GA system for students is that it’s self-reinforcing. The students who care the most get there early to get good seats, which makes sense. The students who care the least tend to get there later and sit in the upper deck. The upper deck doesn’t feel like it’s part of the student section, isn’t as fun, and isn’t a great seat. So these students, who already didn’t care as much, have a “meh” time and are less likely to come back. Along with this, culturally other things have displaced live sports a bit. There is so much entertainment available at your fingertips now.
Students have only been turned away like three or four times since the system went into place a couple decades ago from what I understand. I don’t think the experience at games like Iowa and KU is stopping kids from going to Cincinnati, it’s that they don’t care as much (and it’s brutally cold out). If they instituted some kind of seniority or lottery based system though I’d be fine with it. It’s getting to the point where you likely won’t get worse results than we are currently getting.