However, nothing is free. Design competitions are not cheap. Take Arizona State University’s Formula SAE team. (SAE stands for the Society of Automotive Engineers.) With over a hundred students, donated machine shop space and faculty advisors from a respected school, you would think the team is a force to be reckoned with. That isn’t the case.

Though the club has existed since the 1990s, they were only able to participate in a single race: last year. In that race, the team ranked 63rd out of 122 teams. You might ask yourself, where’s the disconnect? Arizona State University (ASU) notes that the issue with the performance at last year’s competition had to do with scheduling. However, the real issue plaguing the team is why the school has only been able to participate in one competition in 25 years; that boils down to the all-mighty dollar.

The team’s chief engineer, Wes Kudela, explains that the students are on their own to develop the design, manage the project and raise the money. Two of those three criteria make sense. The team should be in control of the car’s design and the management of the process. But the money is another issue.

Last year, ASU’s car cost $24,000. Next year’s will likely cost more. While this may be considered a small cost compared to typical automotive prototypes and the overall production of a vehicle, it is still a lot of money to students. Consider also growing tuition costs and a tough economy that could block students, parents and company sponsors from donating to the cause. There is no leasing program for a self-made car. If it is hard for ASU, imagine what it is like for a school that has low-income students and/or minimal local community business support; $24,000 can be an unlikely goal.

“One of the things we struggle with is building the business side of the club,” said Troy Buhr, team manager. Every member of ASU’s team is tasked with finding funding wherever they can.

Students are told that gathering funds and donors is part of the business aspect of the competition. However, in the real world, a company would normally contact your team to develop a prototype Formula-style race car, and your team would actually receive money to build that prototype.

Additionally, students are judged based on acceleration, autocross, cost and manufacturing analysis, design, endurance, fuel economy and skidpad — not exactly fund-worthy aspects.

Where Should the Funding Come From?

First, ASU reports that many students going to ASU join its engineering program just to be a part of the Formula SAE club. Therefore, the club is bringing money into the university in the form of tuition. It would therefore be in ASU’s best interests to donate back some of those tuition earnings to the Formula SAE club. Comparing the cost of the car to tuition, the school will make back their money if a few students were to choose ASU over another school based on the existence of ASU’s Formula SAE club.

Second, there is industry. No doubt these design competitions are a great way for companies to find potential engineers. Kudela himself has interned at Tesla while Chrysler and Ford also hunts for hires from ASU.

“It’s a leg up,” Kudela said. “These companies come to [the] competition and see how your school does.” In fact, ASU hints that many of these companies won’t look at engineering graduates unless they were in an engineering competition.

As a result, it is in a company’s best interest to fund student engineering competitions to help improve the quality of their hiring pool. Companies are therefore great sources for donations. For example, Chrysler donated $12,000 last year to ASU.

Though the SAE doesn’t have the funds to support the teams themselves, they are able to change the rules of the competition to be more inclusive. At the very least, SAE can create a fundraising cap so the students can spend more time on the car and less time canvasing. And they can do more.

It is inefficient for each school to go to corporations asking for donations. Theoretically, a single company like Chrysler might end up donating to each team individually. Perhaps it would be more efficient if Formula SAE would go to these companies to create a funding pool that is evenly distributed among the teams. It would certainly make a better PR story. After all, a single press release saying “Chrysler Donates Millions to Hundreds of Formula SAE Teams” sounds better than hundreds of press releases saying “Chrysler Donates Thousands of Dollars a University.”

These potential changes to the SAE rules would certainly level the playing field and allow more schools to afford to participate, especially those with low-income students or in areas with fewer local supporting businesses.

“I want everyone in here to learn engineering,” Kudela said. “I love it, and I want to give that opportunity to other people.”

There are benefits to capping the money each team has to work with. Engineering teams in the real world work on a budget, often established at the start of a project. Similarly, a cap would force students to think more like real-world automotive engineers, who must squeeze every penny they can into the design.

With that logic, a good design and good engineering, a team should be able to rank well with a limited budget. For example, look at two sample cost reports supplied by Formula SAE from 2011. Cornell University spent almost $25,000 on their car while the University of Akron spent just about half at $12,500. Clearly there can be quite a span in the car costs between schools. Interestingly, the University of Akron (ranked 8th) placed better than Cornell (14th) in Formula SAE 2011 results.

With a larger budget, a team can afford better parts and more flexibility in their design. However, that flexibility can often limit optimization of your design. Therefore, larger budgets may not always translate to better scores. Unfortunately though, even the lower budgets for these cars are significant. With price tags like that, a team may not be able to participating in SAE to begin with.

For more on how economics can affect a student’s education in STEM, read this previous article.

With reporting from Scott Seckel, ASU Now.