How is the Courier funded?

The Courier receives a portion of the activity fee all students pay when enrolling at the College of DuPage. We are also partially self-funded through the sale of advertising space in our print edition, email newsletter, website and social media. Students who work for the Courier are either paid out of those funds or from their financial aid award.

Why does the Courier sell advertising space?

The Courier receives a portion of the fees students pay to attend the College of DuPage. The amount the Courier receives is based on decisions made by a board that allocates the fee revenue. As such, it is not a 100% reliable and renewable source of funding for the paper. It costs money to print the paper, host the website and host our podcasts. The majority of students who create content for the paper and its design are paid, hourly for their work. The more income the paper receives, the more students it can employ. The adviser for the Courier also receives a portion of the advertising proceeds, allowing the Courier to employ an adviser with more than 20 years of award-winning professional journalism experience. Advertising revenue also helps to minimize the Courier’s reliance on the college for funding. Maintaining as much independence as possible is important for a college newspaper as it minimizes the opportunities of college administration to censor the paper or shut it down by restricting or eliminating funding if it includes content it doesn’t like.

How does advertising impact the news content of the Courier?

The adviser for the Courier has full control over the advertising contained in the paper and on the Courier’s website. While the adviser provides input on the news content of the paper the student staff maintains 100% control over that content. In this way, decisions about how to cover issues, what issues to cover and where stories appear online and in the print edition are not impacted by the advertising that appears.