You see them everywhere. They're the kids who bring you snacks, get you drunk, and entertain you. They're colleague-minions who truck your dirty boxer shorts to New Jersey to make an extra buck. They're the undergrads who run campus businesses, and they're way ahead of you in the money game.

A few of these businesses are proudly independent, including Lion Laundry, the Lion (formerly Pirate) Card, and some nascent startups (such as the faltering Campusboxoffice.com). Lion Laundry, incorporated in 2003 by two Pike (PKA) fraternity members who bought a pre-existing company called SUDS, is perhaps Columbia's best example of unfettered entrepreneurial spirit. The company functions as a transport service: employees are hired to fetch bags from customers' rooms, send clothes to a laundromat in New Jersey, and then re-deposit them on their doorsteps.

Last year, rather than simply pass it on to friends, Lion Laundry's founders hyper-formally auctioned the business off to two College freshmen, Rome native Carlo Passacantando CC '10, and hockey player Otto Magdanz, CC '10. Although the rumor mill places their purchase price at $40,000, the buyers refused to comment.

"I talked to some of the people who manage our [family's] money" before making a bid, said Magdanz. The elder Magdanzes, who run a glassblowing shop in Martha's Vineyard, put up a significant portion of the Lion Laundry price. "Mainly, my parents saw that it could be very profitable but that it was more of a learning experience," said the young entrepreneur. "Ideally, [the investment] would be repaid to them soon."

Despite the change in ownership, the business is still operated out of Pike. Neither Magdanz nor Passacantado is a Pike brother, but the affiliation of Frat Row and the boardroom is not unusual in the world of campus businesses. Beta boys hawk the Lion/Pirate Card, and the managing director of the guidebook Inside New York (part of the Columbia Student Enterprises; see below), Brett Robbins, CC '09, found out about the managerial position through one of his AEPi brothers. (Dmitry Shevelenko, CC '08, was the assistant manager the year before.) It seems that student businesses, like i-banks, have a Greek fetish.

Some outfits, however, have managed to shield themselves from the whims of the free market, cocooned in the school's paternalistic embrace. Four University-sanctioned "student agencies"—CU Bartending, Inside New York, the Columbia University Tutoring and Translating Agency (CUTTA), and CU Snacks—comprise the Columbia Student Enterprises (CSE), a program in the Center for Career Education (CCE) administered by two full-time University employees. Every year, after a competitive application process, CSE's directors select one Columbia student to be in charge of each agency. During their tenure, each so-called "Student Manager", in theory, runs all business operations—including anything to do with hiring and firing staff, customer service, and financial solvency. All under CSE's watchful eye, of course.

This arrangement between the student agencies and CSE is intricate and strange. The closest "real-world" equivalent might be a quasi-governmental agency: each has an independent administrator and caters to the general public, yet at the same time benefits from its official affiliation (think of the more transparent Lion Laundry as a publicly-traded company, accountable to its shareholders).

At Columbia, perks for all student agencies include office space in the Career Center, CSE money for capital, school-managed financial accounts, University staff who deal with credit, legal issues, and invoices, and—in some cases—work-study for employees. In return for these benefits, businesses tithe 45 percent of their profits to the CSE, leaving student managers "eligible for up to 55 percent," according to Assistant Director of Student Enterprises Rebecca Rodriguez. Funds that flow into the office, she said, are then re-distributed back to businesses, which are "expected to be self-sustaining" at the end of the day. According to Rodriguez, funds are allocated evenly between the four companies, due to the center's policy "to not use the funds for something that will only benefit one agency."

Sounds a bit like Marx, but first-time entrepreneurs may need the aid that a little communism provides.

JUST GOT PAID

In the 2006 fiscal year—the final year the business was run by its founders—Lion Laundry brought in $51,000 in net revenue. After costs, the business earned $24,500 in net profit. (Magdanz and Passacantando hope to increase these profits by expanding to service graduate and Barnard students.) So, if Lion Laundry is pulling in fifty grand, how are the school-regulated businesses doing?

CU Bartending, dating back to the 1960s, currently boasts about 200 agency members, said managing director Renee Stroebel, SEAS '08. Each year the agency accepts about 15 percent of graduates from the agency-run School of Mixology, where classes are taught by "TAs" and veteran instructors who get a cut from each of their pupils' $180 tuition checks. Once you make it into the agency by proving you can passably titrate ethyl alcohol concoctions, you're on the list for city and campus gigs that pay $22 per hour for a minimum of four hours, plus tips. (Some say that everyone works "four hours" for each gig, regardless of the clock's record.) The agency, meanwhile, takes a $30 commission per job, and the year-round staff recently grew to include paid office workers and a team of six managers who handle public relations, website maintenance, "special projects" and more.

The real moneymaker, though, is the Mixology class itself. The school offers several classes every semester, with between 20 and 70 students enrolled in each, and you can't join the agency or sign up for gigs without passing the final exam—at least half of which is a subjective review of your personality and sense of humor. Public Relations director Alec Turnbull, CC '08, (who is also a B&W staffer), noted that, in addition to hundreds of CU students, classes often include Columbia employees and even non-University affiliates who just want to add bartending skills to their resume.

"I've always been somewhat of a leader," said Stroebel, an applied physics major who has been involved with the agency since she was a first-year. With her elusive speaking style and penchant for business jargon, Stroebel is one of the few Columbia undergrads who can make terms like "human capital" sound commonplace—yet she refused to divulge business income figures. "Our budget is very complex," she explained, due to "different sources of income."

One assistant manager, who claimed he did not know exact revenue figures, suggested a "back of the envelope" calculation. If the agency arranges an estimated three jobs per day year-round—an average figure that takes into account the slow summer season and increased business around the winter holidays—and earns a $30 commission for each, that's over $32,000 of annual income from gigs alone. Combined with high revenues from bartending classes, which run year-round and draw hundreds of attendees, he surmised that the annual revenue might approach "the high tens of thousands...maybe more."

Which means that, theoretically, there should be plenty of money to go around to agency employees. And some bartenders do say that there's no better way to make easy money than to take a few gigs. The process of claiming them, however—going into the office to physically sign up for jobs in a binder kept on the manager's desk—can be a source of annoyance for the many agency employees not a part of the managerial structure.

"The people who work in the office get the good jobs," said one student in the agency, citing gallery openings and downtown loft parties as high-tipping gigs. Managers, she said, are always first in line in a first-come, first-served system. "There's one [manager] who comes in every morning in the summer and takes all the jobs."

Of course, these are irritations you experience if you even make the cut. Some will just never get that valuable seal of approval, no matter how well they know their apple martinis,

"They stress that you have to be hot," the student said. "I'm a terrible bartender. I mean, it helped me that I'm not ugly."

A HIERARCHY OF VALUE

Rodriguez refused to answer questions about exact financial figures having to do with the Student Enterprises. (The last publicly available numbers come from 1998, when there were at least 12 student agencies. In that year, a Columbia University Record article pegged CSE gross revenues at "between $800-900,000 per year.") While Rodriguez insisted that all agencies receive a slice of the funds that make up the CSE pie, she admitted that some businesses are more profitable than others. "Obviously something like bartending is going to make more money than...snacks," she commented reluctantly.

Compared to the 200 members of CU Bartending, the fat masthead of Inside New York, and the hundreds of translators and tutors who work for CUTTA, CU Snacks does seem somewhat anemic. A current manager, Eugene Kogan, SEAS '08, said the company hires about 20 employees and a board of three managers, including himself. Rumors have circulated about the solvency of the business, which was founded in 2004 with a grant from the Committee on Columbia Organization of Rising Entrepreneurs (CORE), but Kogan downplayed the possibility of CU Snacks' financial troubles.

Kogan does admit that he faces the challenges of both carving a niche for the relatively new business and cultivating customer loyalty. He noted that expensive treats like milkshakes keep customers interested, but actually lose money for the company. CSE, he said, functions as the safety net he would lack if he ran his business independently. Contrary to comments about self-sustainability from Rodriguez and managers of other businesses, Kogan noted that his company is very much dependent on CSE, and seems grateful for the added security. "Columbia finances our operations. Essentially they own the business and provide us with the opportunity to manage it," he said.

Bartending special projects manager Andrew Ness, CC'08, said that his company has pushed to keep CU Snacks afloat. "I know Renee [Stroebel] has lobbied on their behalf to the greatest extent possible," he said. "She helps them," he said, primarily because of the developing friendships between the managers.

"CCE gives you three years," says Ness. "If you're not on your feet after that, then they cut you." Indeed, the current crop of student agencies is dramatically pared down from the CSE of yore—dozens of other agencies gave gone obsolete or bankrupt. The rise of the Internet, for instance, put the kibosh on a short-lived New York Times delivery service in the 90s, and others, such as a stationary supplier, have simply faded away due to the campus' tempestuous market forces.

Despite profit differentials, Kogan says that each of the business managers gets an $8,000 baseline salary from CSE—which can be supplemented by their 55 percent cut of agency profits.

STOP THE PRESSES

"I don't," said Brett Robbins, publisher and manager of this year's edition of Inside New York, when asked if he was getting an $8,000 check for his labors. His explanation of the payment structures was less than revelatory. "This year," he said, "the Center determined how much money would be allocated from the operating expenses of the business, but it did not pay the manager. The business paid the manager."

Inside New York, founded in 1978, is uniquely seasonal. While the bartending agency and Lion Laundry supply students throughout the year, the guidebook is reborn each summer, produced by a completely new staff. Every June and July, about 40 writers, editors, designers, and advertising salespeople put together the Time Out-style guide; in August, each incoming Columbia freshman receives a copy as part of the Orientation package. [Full disclosure: James Williams, CC '08, this year's Editor-in- Chief, is also a B&W editor. He was not interviewed for this article.] The guide, which is also sold to other area schools and businesses that distribute it to their own students and employees, will top 375 pages this year. Robbins said he "oversaw all operations of the business from hiring to firing to marketing and sales."

In financial terms, the guidebook operates like most commercial publications: business staff members are paid handsomely, while writers and editors makes considerably less, or in some cases, nothing at all. According to the application package distributed to potential staff members earlier this year, which laid out the positions the agency sought to fill and their associated salaries, advertising sales directors are promised a base summer salary of $500, in addition to sales commission ranging from $300 to $1,500 per ad. The dining and nightlife editors, on the other hand, can expect to receive only the base salary of $500. Features writers and arts reviewers were offered $20 and $5 per article, respectively, while restaurant and bar reviewers get nothing beyond complimentary meals and drink tickets. The package also calls for "interns"—presumably, students more or less the same age as the managers—who are completely unpaid. But, the application promises, "All in all, interns gain transferable, marketable experience in all aspects of producing a world-class travel guide...and have a pretty good time too."

Joanna Bernstein, CC '09, who worked as neighborhoods editor—her job included finding and reviewing interesting New York landmarks and sights for the guidebook—said she hasn't been paid for her work, though she's been told she'll see a check once school starts.

"I worked really hard for eight weeks," she said. "I didn't even have time to read a book or a newspaper." She added that she watched her business staff co-workers earn regular money throughout the production process, even when they joined up mid-way through the summer.

In retrospect, she said, she wishes she'd insisted more strongly on a "minimum amount." While she took her job seriously, other staffers "didn't do anything because they knew they weren't getting paid." But, she ruefully acknowledges, there's nothing she can do about it now.

IT'S WHAT I WANT

The bee-like managers of Columbia Student Enterprises and independent campus companies share a common characteristic beyond burgeoning business savvy: they all view their money-making exercises as fundamentally educational. In addition, almost all of them want to someday go into business on their own. For now, though, they're lords of petty fiefdoms. Perhaps the heavily regulated environment even makes these mini-Buffetts stronger, honing their ability to work the bureaucracy, peddle their wares, keep mum about their finances, and deflect criticism.

If Columbia's anything like the real world, they'll do just fine.