We have previously discussed the meltdown at the University of Missouri-Columbia where applications have plummeted since the controversial responses to race protests on campus, including the decision to terminate a journalism professor who encouraged students to “muscle” a student journalist. The result has been the shutting down of whole dormitories. Now the university has hit upon a new idea to raise revenue. It has effectively become a hotel and has been renting out rooms in vacant dormitories for $120 a night for football games.
The university has reportedly raised about $20,000 per game which remains significantly less than the millions lost in the aftermath of the protests.
The university alienated many applicants in its response to the protests with many viewing the university as too accommodating to demands for policy changes while others objecting to the termination of the professor.
The venture into the hotel business raises some interesting issues. With one third of the renters coming from out of state, the university is engaged in interstate commerce as a lodger. The university is a tax-free institution competing with local hotels while not satisfying permitting, licensing, and other requirements demands of commercial lodging businesses. Moreover, there is the question of how the insurance policies operate with the change from dormitory housing to short-term hotel rentals. This new enterprise means different people spending nights at the university with little information on their background or other criteria. Finally, the tax-exempt status is based on the fact that the university is not a profit-making institution. It is not clear how the university pays the taxes on such revenue producing businesses. Obviously, the football program and other enterprises like the campus shops do produce revenue but there remains the question of using the facility for profit rentals. It is hard to believe that $120 a night is simply the costs of operation when the room comes with some bars of soap, towels, and bare bones accommodations. Nevertheless, Chateau Mizzou is booked for the entire season and this is a promising way of increasing ties to alumni. It will not make up the loss of $5 million but $120 a night is not a bad return on an otherwise closed dormitory.
Of course one way to circumvent the pesky legal questions would be to tie the operation of these dorms to the hotel management degree as a clinic like experience. Alumni then fulfill the same function as farm animals kept for the husbandry programs . . . except this livestock pays by the night.
Pay state taxes?!? They are a state-owned and -operated entity. And the amount they collect would probably end up in the same revenue pot.
I wonder if Columbia, MO has any anti-Airbnb regulations that prohibit short-term lodging rentals. And the liabilities for short-term rentals are different than for long-term residents.
good workaround at the end.
tho I don’t know why this would be a problem, I spent 6 weeks in a dorm at U of C attending another institution in the area, turned out to be pretty cheap place to crash. There was so much on the agenda it’s about all I actually did there. Nice campus.
Are these rooms safe spaces?
It’s about time to ask Missouri to leave the Union and be more like Puerto Rico. Just need to cut out Kansas City, which really belongs in Kansas anyway.
Might need a little muscle over there to make it happen 🙂
Carlos Danger might want a room after they let him out. Figure 12 months is long enough for his on-line paramours to turn legal and enroll at Mizzou. He’d be right there waiting for them – assuming registered sex offenders are allowed to rent out dorm rooms.
Renting out empty dorm rooms? Is the income they are earning from tenants being deducted from their annual budget requests? How come they aren’t offering to house the needy?
We need some M̶u̶s̶c̶l̶e̶ maids around here!
Pretty sure Motel 6 is around $65,
They must be smoking something.
They would have to pay me, to stay in a college dorm room again. Four years was enough for lifetime. Maybe if they combined two or three into a more habitable space….
Wow! At the very least they’re breaking zoning ordinances. Spending $120 on a dorm room in Columbia Missouri in the fall and winter seems pretty unappealing.
Anyway, Schadenfreude! Rock Chalk Jayhawk!
Northern Arizona University has a hotel degree and could offer some tips. Their students used to work the train from Williams to the Grand Canyon for work experience. They were very hospitable. 😉 Still, if you are paying a $120 a night for a dorm room, the university needs to pay sales taxes, out of state taxes, etc. Someone should audit them.
Frateau Misuse