This November Saint Anselm College have a had a front row seat to the Presidential Election, hosting multiple debates and candidate appearances. A crowd of thousands descended upon Alumni Quad when Hillary Clinton spoke at the NH Democratic Rally on Oct. 24.

With these events and campus buildings like the New Hampshire Institute of Politics, students have opportunities to connect with the country’s current political climate.

Dr. Harry Dumay, Senior VP for Finance and Chief Financial Officer for Saint Anselm College said that the school’s main motivation for hosting these events is not monetary based.

“We don’t do this, we don’t host debates, political events, guest speakers with the purpose of making money,” Dumay said. “We host them because of the extraordinary experience it provides to students whether they are interested in politics or not.”

But he also stated that while events like Clinton’s visit are rewarding to the students, they are not very financially rewarding to the school. According to Dumay, and Saint Anselm’s executive director of budget planning, Renee Crawford, the school walks away from the majority of these events without any loss or much gain in revenue.

Every conceivable cost that goes into a visit, like Clinton’s, is covered by the campaign or organization in charge. Police presence, extra security, stage setup, even electricity is paid for by the group using the Saint Anselm College facilities.

“Either we contract with the Goffstown police and they send us a bill, and we pass that on to the Democratic campaign committee and they return the money to us,” Dumay said. “Or in some instances our own staff do the work for them and they pay us for the cost of our own staff.”

While events like candidate appearances tend to be cost neutral, a small sum of money is attained through the debates that the school hosts at the beginning of an election cycle. The school charges the television networks a small administrative fee for the work that must be done to coordinate everything. In addition, there is usually a charge for use of Saint Anselm’s catering services.

Dumay said that in addition to covering these costs, there is a markup which results in a small amount of cash. However, the debates do not serve as massive fundraisers for the school. According to Crawford, the college received about $300,000 from the two big presidential debates held on campus last year. However, after expenses the total net income was close to $20,000.

“The cost of the debates isn’t typical,” Crawford said. “The December Democratic debate only had two candidates, versus the February Republican debate which had a bunch of candidates. It depends how many candidates they have and how long they stay. There’s not a general number.”

The money raised from the debates is considered general revenue for the college. That means that it isn’t for a specific purpose. Instead the school can choose to use it for anything ranging from scholarships to campus maintenance.

Saint Anselm staying cost neutral with these events is not a requirement. There are no rules restricting a school from profiting from visits like Clinton’s earlier this year. However, Dumay said competition among other colleges is one reason Saint Anselm goes about it this way.

“Other institutions would love to have this at their venue,” Dumay said. “If we started to look like we are trying to profiteer from this those institutions would be happy to not earn any money and have it free as well and have it on their own campuses.”

Saint Anselm may not be directly compensated for hosting such a wide variety of political events, but publicity serves the college just as well. Millions of Americans intently watch every election season all across the country. Each event is covered by multiple news outlets on television, internet, and paper. All that attention is just as precious to the college as actual revenue.

“It’s hard to put a number on all that free publicity the college is receiving,” Crawford said. “The amount of times Saint Anselm is said on national networks, I mean I don’t know how you put a value on that.”

Although the presidential election has concluded, that doesn’t mean that Saint Anselm will not be hosting any more events for the next four years. The New Hampshire Institute of Politics located on campus regularly holds events for local politicians, as well as lectures open to all students. They regularly email their schedule for any student interested in taking advantage of upcoming political events.