Penn State's hot ticket: POTUS

WASHINGTON (CNN) - President Obama returns to Penn State University Thursday, for the first time since appearing there as a candidate in March of 2008. The then Senator Obama, who was fighting for the Democratic nomination, drew a crowd of some 20,000 curious and enthusiastic onlookers to the campus quad on a brisk spring day.

Nearly three years later, Obama will address a much smaller crowd inside the University’s Rec Hall, in a speech billed by the White House as “invitation only.”The school’s newspaper, the Daily Collegian, reports the University distributed 1,000 tickets to students in the span of just 30 minutes Monday, after some of the students spent the night in line in a makeshift camp dubbed “Obamaville.”

For those students who didn’t get one of the coveted tickets, never fear. You can still be on hand to see the president…if you’re prepared to fork over the cash.

Tickets to the event are going for as much as $400 on Craigslist – a steep cost for your average college kid.