MSU summer camps barely profit

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Thousands of dollars in summer camp and program fees are collected by MSU each year, but profits for the university are lower than some might expect.

Some programs and camps break even, while others generate a small profit for the university. The money goes toward everything from salaries for instructors to housing and feeding campers. Although programs range from less than $50 to about $1,500, the university isn’t collectively making a large profit from them.

Moneymakers

Last summer, the MSU Athletics Department accrued a profit of less than $100,000 from the summer camps program, said John Lewandowski, associate athletic director for communications, in an e-mail.

The money then became part of the overall Athletics Department budget, he said.

Residence halls on campus generated $2.5 million in revenues from students in some overnight Spartan Youth Programs last summer, said Carla Hills, communications manager for University Outreach and Engagement.

Any net income accumulated by the MSU Division of Residential and Hospitality Services is used to renovate facilities such as dorms, said Bob Patterson, chief financial officer for the Division of Residential and Hospitality Services.

Revenue generated by the summer camps held at MSU might indirectly affect students, he said.

“If we can get some of the money from the summer camps … that does help to reduce the cost for room and board for the students,” Patterson said.

The reductions would be very small because summer camps are a small percentage of total business, he said.

Colleges and their departments hold programs for thousands of students ages 6-18 throughout the summer, with some price tags as high as $1,500.

Despite these costs, individual colleges must cover camp and program expenses.

High profits are not realized by many of the colleges and departments holding summer programs, but creating a profit is not the goal, university officials said.

Breaking even

Running a summer camp isn’t cheap, but the point is not to make a profit, said Jillian Winn, an outreach specialist for the Department of Telecommunication, Information Studies and Media.

Winn runs seven media camps through the College of Communication Arts and Sciences and a portion of revenues are used to pay staff, buy supplies for the camps and provide housing and food.

The camps break even in terms of paying for costs and making a profit, but camp goals lie in a different area, she said.

“We don’t really do it to make a profit,” Winn said. “We do it more to have people exposed to our programs.”

Hosting incoming freshman in the Summer Business Institute for one week is a nonprofit venture, said Heather Hill, spokeswoman for the Eli Broad College of Business.

Other colleges also take in minimal profits from summer programs, such as the College of Engineering, which will run about 10 camps this summer.

“The main goal is not necessarily to make money, but rather to provide a pathway for our young students to become future Spartan engineers,” said Drew Kim, assistant to the dean for recruitment, scholarship and K-12 outreach for the College of Engineering.

Costs for camps run as high as $500 for weeklong, overnight stays, but sponsorship money and subsidies pay for most of the camp costs, still leaving the college with little profit, Kim said.

The college can receive as much as $400,000 in sponsorship money from the National Science Foundation and corporate sponsors such as Motorola for programs throughout the whole year, he said.

Also not making much of a profit is the MSU Community Music School, which holds about five camps.

“When we come up with the camp budget, we try to weight the size of the camp with the cost to give families a really quality camp at an affordable price,” said Amanda Darche, grant writer and communications coordinator for the MSU Community Music School.

The school is “not really making a profit,” she said.

Better than nothing

This summer, Kathee McDonald, director of the Office of Gifted and Talented Education, is expecting about a $350 profit before paying bills for camps such as the Math, Science and Technology Program, or MST, at MSU.

The Office of Gifted and Talented Education is a division of the MSU Honors College.

The MST camps give students a hands-on experience in subjects such as astronomy, astrophysics, genetics and mechanical engineering.

About 50 percent of camp tuition will pay for instructor’s salaries and supplies and the remaining money will go toward food and housing, McDonald said.

The College of Natural Science and the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources’ Department of Entomology profits $500 to 600 from the Insect World Science Camp, which goes back into camps the following year, said Barb Stinnett, outreach coordinator for the Department of Entomology.

“The goal is to get kids to look at MSU; that’s the primary goal,” Stinnett said. “If they were to choose entomology, that’s the bonus for us.”

Bringing them in

Downturns in the state economy make paying for camp more difficult, McDonald said.

“With the economy being what it is, people that would not normally ask for scholarships are asking for scholarships,” she said. “It’s been really, really dire.”

A lower attendance might affect the already minimal profits by generating less revenue.

Although some colleges do provide scholarship money to pay for campers’ tuition, camps do not depend on this funding.

“We’re fortunate that we do have some scholarship money given to us from our college, but it’s not guaranteed money they will give us every year,” Winn said.

In this economy, camps might have a hard time recruiting new campers, she said.

“Camp is one of the first things you’re going to cut because it’s an extra,” Winn said.

More important than the profits are the experiences kids have at MSU, McDonald said.

“Being with kids that like to learn … to watch them interact in the classroom, it’s just phenomenal,” she said.

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