“We teach social science here on campus and it’s not very easy to tell students about other countries, but when they’re out in the field, they know and they live and so on,” he said. “It also gives me the opportunity to get in touch with the area of my studies so I can improve my research.”

Hinojosa, a professor of urban and regional planning, has taken students to Mexico and the Dominican Republic and will return to Mexico in December.

Recently, some universities have come under fire about how they run their study abroad programs. According to The New York Times, the universities, including Rice University and University of California, Berkeley, have outside providers handle their study abroad programs. In some cases the universities receive a percentage of the study abroad program money and free trips for faculty members.

Kathleen Fairfax, director of MSU’s Office of Study Abroad, said the thought of MSU using such methods “doesn’t make any sense at all” because of its size.

“I can’t even imagine MSU doing that,” Fairfax said. “We don’t use providers. If you look at it, it seems to be something that’s more prevalent among private schools than public schools. None of our funding from programs ever comes from a third-party provider.”

MSU obviously receives money when students study abroad, as they do when students take classes on campus, Fairfax said.

“The university gets money any time a student pays tuition, but that money is used to fund this office as well as the academic cost of the program,” she said. “It’s just like when a student who’s a history major here pays their tuition, not all of it goes to the history department.”

Unlike the benefits described in The New York Times article, Fairfax likened the faculty accommodations to funding provided in classrooms in East Lansing.

“The tuition bill is the same scenario if they were taking credits on campus,” Fairfax said. “The program fee is set to break even on every program. We use the program fee to pay the bills. The tuition goes to the university, but the university turns it back to this office to cover academic costs of the program — salary of faculty members, if we have to rent classrooms, audio/visual equipment — stuff that would normally be covered by tuition on campus are the things we use the tuition for.”

Fairfax said third-party providers are more useful to universities that don’t have programs large enough to satisfy students.

“Universities who don’t have the capabilities to do what we do will pick and choose the programs they recommend to their students,” she said. “Many universities have a list and if you’re going to choose a program, those are the ones they’re going to recommend. Relationships have existed that limit students to only picking off a recommended list. So there’s a tendency that it could slide into some shady dealings.”

MSU, which offers 230 study abroad programs in 64 countries, sent 2,801 students abroad last school year. Those students pay a tuition fee, as they would in East Lansing, and a program fee that covers housing, field trips, emergency medical insurance, food and faculty expenses.

Rather than turning a profit, Fairfax said the goal is to break even, while also taking care of some expenses of faculty members.

As with Hinojosa, the faculty benefits pale in comparison to the experience said Jim Detjen, journalism professor and director of the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism.

“It’s a very different experience than teaching a class for an hour and a half two times a week,” Detjen said. “You bond with them. You get to know students in a much greater way and I enjoy that personal interaction.”