Colleges Spend Millions to Host Presidential Debates. What Do They Get in Return?

Photo illustration by Ron Coddington

For the past four decades, many of the televised bouts of verbal sparring between candidates for president, and between those for vice president, have taken place on college campuses.

That trend will continue in 2020. The Commission on Presidential Debates, which has sponsored the general-election debates since 1987, announced last week that the University of Notre Dame, the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, and Belmont University will be the site of presidential debates. The University of Utah was selected to host the debate for vice-presidential candidates.

“This is a tremendous opportunity for the university community to contribute to our democracy, while setting an example of civic engagement and shining a light on the outstanding academic strengths of our institution,” said Mark S. Schlissel, president of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, in a news release.

The first college to host a presidential debate, in 1976, was the College of William & Mary — which counts four U.S. presidents among its alumni: George Washington (who earned a surveyor’s license there at 17), Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe (who’d dropped out of college to fight in the Revolutionary War), and John Tyler. The William & Mary debate featured a face-off between President Gerald R. Ford and Jimmy Carter.

Twelve years later, the University of California at Los Angeles and Wake Forest University followed, jump-starting colleges’ longtime reign as the go-to sites for general-election debates. Since 1976, there have been 39 presidential and vice-presidential debates, 28 of which have been held on college campuses.

Competition can be fierce, however. In some years, as many as a dozen colleges have applied for what is generally four spots. Some colleges, such as Columbus State University, in Georgia, the University of Cincinnati, Texas A&M University at College Station, and Saint Mary’s College of California, have applied to be debate hosts but didn’t make the cut.

As the 2020 election draws near, each of the chosen colleges will be busily preparing for an event whose logistical complexities will often require a hefty financial investment and will stretch their personnel thin. The minimum fee for hosts this year is $2.5 million, which goes to the commission. On top of that, the cost can increase by $4 million to $7 million to pay for security, technology, and campus programming, wrote Justin Pope, vice president and chief of staff at Longwood University, in a Chronicle column reflecting on the institution’s experience as a 2016 presidential-debate host.

What do colleges get in return? Here’s what the colleges that have hosted debates since 1988 have said.

Wake Forest U.

Winston-Salem, N.C.
Debate years: 1988, 2000
Debate type: Presidential
Candidates: George H.W. Bush vs. Michael Dukakis/George W. Bush vs. Al Gore
Enrollment: 5,046
The payoff: 37.5 million viewers

Washington U. in St. Louis

St. Louis, Mo.
Debate years: 1992, 2000, 2004, 2008, 2016
Debate type: Presidential (4), Vice presidential
Candidates: George H.W. Bush vs. Bill Clinton vs. Ross Perot/George W. Bush vs. Al Gore/George W. Bush vs. John Kerry/Joe Biden vs. Sarah Palin/Hillary Clinton vs. Donald Trump
Enrollment: 17,021
The payoff: 66.5 million viewers, more than 5,000 mentions of the university’s name in mainstream-media coverage
Did you know? In 1992, back when film wasn’t digital, the university turned showers into photo-developing and -transmitting facilities for photographers on site. One other bit: The university was scheduled to host a Bill Clinton/Bob Dole debate in 1996, but it was canceled two weeks beforehand, when the number of presidential debates was scaled back to two. So Wash U. has actually been asked six times since 1992 to host a debate but did so only five times.

Centre College

Danville, Ky.
Debate years: 2000, 2012
Debate type: Vice presidential
Candidates: Dick Cheney vs. Joe Lieberman/Joe Biden vs. Paul Ryan
Enrollment: 1,440
The payoff: Publicity value: $53 million. Positive momentum that led to a $200-million campaign ($10 million over the goal), exposure to 51.4 million viewers, 10-percent increase in student body, name recognition
Did you know? In 2000 the debate at Centre College was dubbed the “Thrill in the ’Ville.” The 2012 debate’s moniker? “Thrill in the ’Ville 2.” It’s the smallest college in the smallest town to host two general-election debates.

U. of Massachusetts at Boston

Boston, Mass.
Debate year: 2000
Debate type: Presidential
Candidates: George W. Bush vs. Al Gore
Enrollment: 9,440
The payoff: 46.6 million viewers
Did you know? The debate fell on the same day as the first-round playoff game between the New York Yankees and the Oakland Athletics. NBC left up to its local affiliates to decide which event to air.

Arizona State U.

Tempe, Ariz.
Debate year: 2004
Debate type: Presidential
Candidates: George W. Bush vs. John Kerry
Enrollment: 38,634
The payoff: 51.1 million viewers
Did you know? The Grady Gammage Memorial Auditorium, where the debate was held, was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.

Case Western Reserve U.

Cleveland, Ohio
Debate year: 2004
Debate type: Vice presidential
Candidates: Dick Cheney vs. John Edwards
Enrollment: 4,966
The payoff: 43.5 million viewers
Did you know? The moniker for the debate was the “Race at Case.”

U. of Miami

Coral Gables, Fla.
Debate year: 2004
Debate type: Presidential
Candidates: George W. Bush vs. John Kerry
Enrollment: 10,134
The payoff: 62.4 million viewers
Did you know? Officials at the university wanted the candidates to drink water from glasses that had the Miami logo on them. But debate planners said they weren’t heavy enough.

Belmont U.

Nashville, Tenn.
Debate year: 2008
Debate type: Presidential
Candidates: John McCain vs. Barack Obama
Enrollment: 6,132
The payoff: Publicity value: $21 million, 63.2 million viewers
Did you know? Tennessee was home to three presidents — Andrew Jackson, Andrew Johnson, and James K. Polk — but the first presidential debate to be held in that state wasn’t until 2008, at Belmont.

Hofstra U.

Hempstead, N.Y.
Debate years: 2008, 2012, 2016
Debate type: Presidential
Candidates: John McCain vs. Barack Obama/Barack Obama vs. Mitt Romney/Hillary Clinton vs. Donald Trump
Enrollment: 6,469
The payoff: 84 million viewers
Did you know? Hofstra stepped in to host its third presidential debate in three consecutive elections in 2016, when Wright State University pulled out, citing the rising costs of the security required for the event.

U. of Mississippi

Oxford, Miss.
Debate year: 2008
Debate type: Presidential
Candidates: John McCain vs. Barack Obama
Enrollment: 17,361
The payoff: Publicity value: $50 million, 52.4 million viewers
Did you know? Two days before the debate, Sen. John McCain said he was going to skip the event, suspend his campaign, and go back to Washington, D.C., to respond to the financial crisis. He changed his mind on the day of the debate and came to the University of Mississippi as planned.

Lynn U.

Boca Raton, Fla.
Debate year: 2012
Debate type: Presidential
Candidates: Barack Obama vs. Mitt Romney
Enrollment: 1,826
The payoff: Publicity value: $63.7 million, 59.2 million viewers
Did you know? Among the things Lynn did to accommodate the debate: It built new entrances and parking, moved the campus nature preserve, and created an independent power system.

U. of Denver

Denver, Colo.
Debate year: 2012
Debate type: Presidential
Candidates: Barack Obama vs. Mitt Romney
Enrollment: 5,486
The payoff: 67.2 million viewers, 10.3 million debate-related tweets on debate night
Did you know? For the sake of security, six miles of interstate highway around the university was shut down for about five hours, affecting about 50,000 drivers.

Longwood U.

Farmville, Va.
Debate year: 2016
Debate type: Vice presidential
Candidates: Tim Kaine vs. Mike Pence
Enrollment: 3,950
The payoff: Publicity value: More than $83 million, 37 million viewers
Did you know? Longwood’s president, W. Taylor Reveley IV, didn’t attend the debate because he had given his ticket to a student. One hundred other students won tickets to the debate through a lottery.

U. of Nevada at Las Vegas

Las Vegas, Nev.
Debate year: 2016
Debate type: Presidential
Candidates: Hillary Clinton vs. Donald Trump
Enrollment: 18,862
The payoff: Publicity value: $113.6 million, 71.6 million viewers, admissions page views increased 87 percent
Did you know? In Las Vegas there’s always an Elvis in the building. At UNLV, Elvis Presley Rowe, a computer-facilities supervisor, helped build and set up miles of network cable for the debate.

Note: Enrollment data are for undergraduate students in the fall of 2017. Payoff data are for the most recent debate year.
Sources: The Commission on Presidential Debates, U.S. Department of Education data, Nielsen Media Research, and individual institutions

Correction (10/23/2019, 4:56 p.m.): This article originally stated that Jimmy Carter was the governor of Georgia during the 1976 presidential debate at the College of William & Mary. Carter was the former governor at the time. This article has been updated to reflect this correction.

Audrey Williams June is a senior reporter who writes about the academic workplace, faculty pay, and work-life balance in academe. Contact her at audrey.june@chronicle.com, or follow her on Twitter @chronaudrey.