Tickets for New York University’s 2019 commencement ceremony are being advertised for as much as $250

It’s graduation season in the United States, which means lots of caps, gowns, pomp and circumstance, corny speeches, selfies – and an underground trade in graduation tickets to top off the celebrations.

Many colleges and universities limit the number of people who can attend a graduation ceremony, providing students with tickets to the event they can distribute to friends and family. These tickets are often transferable, meaning someone can give a ticket to a friend who needs an extra seat. But this also means that students can sell their tickets – though banned by most schools – to get some extra cash.

This “black market” around graduation has been documented for years, especially with the rise of social media networks. People from schools like Princeton, University of San Francisco and College of Charleston have advertised tickets for hundreds of dollars, the Wall Street Journal reported in 2007. At the University of Virginia, students sold tickets for an average price of $150 for last year’s commencement ceremony in Charlottesville.

Now at New York University (NYU), tickets for the class of 2019’s commencement ceremony are being advertised for as much as $250.

The ceremony for all students receiving their undergraduate or graduate degrees will be held Wednesday at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx. Seating capacity for the stadium is 47,000, while about 18,000 students are expected to graduate, according to New York City news site Gothamist. Students are limited to three free tickets each, though they were able to enter a lottery to get one extra ticket.

For Ricardo Canelo, who identifies as a first-generation citizen and a low-income student at NYU, finding three extra tickets so his parents, two brothers, aunt and girlfriend could come to the ceremony took weeks of scouring the NYU Class of 2019 Facebook page and asking friends for extra tickets. He was close to paying $60 for a ticket, but eventually backed out when he had problems with his debit card.

Canelo – and others who have criticized similar black markets around graduation tickets – wrote that he was frustrated that people have a “lack of understanding” when selling their graduation tickets.

“I want as many people from my family here so I can celebrate with them,” Canelo wrote in a series of texts to the Guardian while at his college graduation ceremony, which happened the day before the main university ceremony. “Life is short and, respectfully, I’m too tired of people being selfish assholes that won’t spare tickets for families who just want to witness a nice graduation.”

Students who are caught selling tickets will be “subject to NYU disciplinary sanction, including without limitation the delayed issuance of a degree or diploma”, according to the school’s website.

An NYU representative told Gothamist that the “sheer scale” of the event makes it impossible to verify “genuine personal needs for tickets”.

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