Campus Enterprises manages N.C. State’s retail and hospitality operations; they returned almost $1.2 million to the University to be disbursed to students in the form of merit and need-based scholarships.
The aid is a part of their annual return to the University. In addition to revenue this year it helped students in need of financial aid, especially in the times of wavering economy. This year Campus Enterprises returned $198,000 more than the previous year.
Dr. Dan Adams, associate vice chancellor of Campus Enterprises, said the organization has a number of sources that can bring revenue to the University.
“Campus Enterprises is a division here at N.C. State which comprises dining stores, book stores, trademark licensing, golf course and a number of administrative units around campus which return university some revenue,” Adams Said.
Adams said they have always tried to support students.
“One of the things we have always done is to pledge to put dollars aside to scholarships assistance for students in different ways in the past,” Adams said
Adams said now they have brought it all under one roof to help students needing financial aid.
“We have consolidated efforts of all those divisions together. For example, Campus Enterprise’s administration puts down some dollars, trademark and licensing puts down some dollars and that is how it is all put together,” Adams said.
“Trademarks and licensing turns over somewhere around 400 thousand to 500 thousand a year, dining turns in some 130 thousand dollars, bookstores give in 270 thousand dollars,” Adams said, “All of those groups participate in putting some dollars in what they collect in fees and services and those types of things and they turn around and pledge it back to scholarships.”
Adams said Campus Enterprises always makes an effort to give back to the University to help students.
“We did the same thing last year, last year it was about a million dollars so it’s just a concerted effort on our part to figure out ways for the services we provide for students to take some of the dollars and give them to university to support students in terms of scholarships and programs,” Adams said.
Adams said the money received by Campus Enterprises trickles down into several different programs.
“Some of it goes into student athletic program, some of it goes into general scholarships, some of it goes into merit scholarships. There are study abroad scholarships, so there are a number of areas that money is directed to,” Adams said.
Adams said the official amount that they returned this year is $1,198,477. He also said they are just following the mission of Campus Enterprises, which is to help students.
“Our whole mission at Campus Enterprises is to facilitate services and programs that benefit students, so that’s one of supporting students as economic times got harder this is just one way we can give back to students and support them with their college experience,” Adams said.
Jennifer Gilmore, marketing/communications manager of Campus Enterprises, said all the units of Campus Enterprises are self-reliant units.
“All the units of the Campus Enterprises are supposed to manage their own budget, rely on their own,” Gilmore said.
She said the Campus Enterprises pay three percent of their revenue as administration fees in addition to scholarship support.
“The University doesn’t give dining or bookstore a certain amount of money to work with. On top of that, we pay into University percent of our revenue as administrative fees, because there are a lot of units on campus that do not generate revenue,” Gilmore said.
She said the economy is forcing university to get more funds.
“Some money comes from general assembly, some comes from private donations and in the times of tough economy university is looking for more money,” Gilmore said
She said that as a repercussion of the bad economy, the University has asked Campus Enterprises to step up their contribution.
“Since the economy took a turn and general assembly has been giving lesser funds we have been asked to increase the amount that we return to the University to help with the cost and we provide scholarship support in addition to that three percent,” Gilmore said
She said anything that students buy from the bookstore, meal-plans get the money back to students.
“So when you buy a t-shirt , a book from bookstore, a meal plan, use a vending machine, that money is going back to students in the form of scholarship and administrative support,” Gilmore said.
Kevin Ehrhardt, a freshman in computer science, said looking at the cost of all the things, the money should be returned to students.
“They should return money, given how much money we pay to go (to school) here and the cost of the books and online accesses, as I couldn’t buy a coffee today as my credit card maxed out because of the books and related stuff that I purchased,” said Ehrhardt.
