That clearly limits the number of schools that can host. Hofstra stepped in for the first debate after Wright State University in Ohio, which was originally slated to host it, said costs that had ballooned to some $8 million and mediocre fundraising hauls made it a financially risky prospect. Several wealthy alumni picked up most of the tab at Hofstra. But for schools that can swing it, there are plenty of reasons to sign up.

In the short term, being a debate site graces a school with “a flash of visibility,” as Givens put it. (This obviously works best when the candidates don’t forget the name of the university at which they’re debating.) In the days leading up to the event, local, national, and even international outlets write about the school. Reporters visit the campus and talk to professors and students, sometimes making contacts they’ll tap into long after the election is decided. And, if whatever PR apparatus the school uses does its job right, the school will in turn have a spate of new reporters to add to its contacts.

Still, Givens acknowledges all of that is short lived. “That doesn’t change anything on a grand scale,” he said. The same way that few people who aren’t Beltway insiders remember which city hosted the 1992 Democratic Convention (New York), and that few people beyond diehard sports fans recollect where the Winter Olympics of 1984 took place (Sarajevo, in present-day Bosnia and Herzegovina), not many people are going to remember where the second presidential debate of 2016 transpired.

For Washington University, it’s the potential for longer-term impact that makes hosting worthwhile.

As of late September, the school had registered more student voters (2,065) through TurboVote than all but three of around 200 participating universities, a ranking Givens attributes in part to the fact that the school is a debate host this year. The school tries to register students every year, he said, but “I think people’s consciousness is raised in general, so they see everything that’s going on. They know the debate’s coming here.” People who vote when they are young are more likely to also vote whey they are older. It’s unclear yet how many of these newly registered students will actually turn out to cast ballots, but registering is obviously a crucial first step.

Givens also says the fact that the university is hosting a debate for the fifth time—more than any other school—allows it to bolster its reputation as a school that values civic engagement. (That’s in line with why the president of Longwood University agreed to host the vice-presidential debate.) No more than a few hundred students will get into the debate hall itself, but they are hosting watch parties and discussions about the debates around the school, and several centers on campus are bringing speakers like David Brooks to campus in the days leading up to October 9 for conversations about things like the future of politics and religion in the United States. Several courses have been created around the election. “That’s important to us,” Givens said. “Maybe [students will] be a little more civically engaged … because they were here.”