Many colleges and universities that want to foster the development and self-confidence of women students in engineering and the sciences realize that a mentoring program can help them achieve their goals. But in these times of ever-shrinking budgets, they all want to know: what does it cost?
An in-house e-mentoring program—whether built from the ground up and completely customized or adapted from existing systems—requires a substantial amount of ongoing maintenance and staff support, including time and expertise for guiding mentor relationships. Moreover, the cost and administrative hassles of setting up and running the program can be daunting, even in a university setting where the computer systems needed for email, websites, and discussion forums are already in place.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for one, decided that going it alone wasn’t worth the trouble. The university’s alumni office considered setting up its own mentoring program, but went with MentorNet instead. “MentorNet was already doing a great job, so it made sense to benefit from their good work and seize the opportunity to be part of a much broader network,” noted Blanche E. Staton, MIT’s associate dean for graduate students, at the MentorNet Partner Workshop last year.
Study Shows High In-House Costs
Very little research is available on the true costs of setting up and running an e-mentoring program—and of course, costs vary depending on the extent and type of services provided. However, one study of 52 youth mentoring programs showed an average cost of more than $1,100 per protégé, and that didn’t take donated goods, services, or volunteer time into account. Most significantly, perhaps, researchers found no economies of scale—the cost per protégé may be higher in larger programs.
Another measure: one corporate consultancy charges more than $100,000 to set up two mentoring programs that serve 100 matched pairs over two years.
Programs such as MentorNet can offer comprehensive services for far less than an organization would spend to build and maintain its own e-mentoring program. MentorNet charges colleges and universities an annual fee ranging from $1,000 to $4,000, based on total enrollment. These partner campuses may enroll as many students as they wish to be matched with mentors, and MentorNet continually guides and supports mentor relationships with training, coaching, online discussion groups, and other forms of support, such as a library of online resources and research.
MentorNet Expands University’s Reach
“Mentoring is something that is very important to students, and based on the cost, and the time and effort for us, MentorNet is much more effective,” said Paige Smith, the University of Maryland’s director of Women in Engineering, in an interview. “And MentorNet allows us to reach more students than we would have otherwise.”
The former Women in Engineering mentoring program—run by a graduate student assistant at a cost of about $15,000 a year—served 108 students over a nonconsecutive three-year period. In the three years since the University of Maryland joined MentorNet, 272 students in Life Sciences, the School of Engineering, and the College of Computer, Mathematical and Physical Sciences have enrolled as MentorNet protégés.
The ability to include all students who want to benefit from mentoring highlights another factor in the cost analysis: time. Reaching more students requires more time from staff, and for busy administrators, every hour is a valuable commodity.
“[MentorNet] costs less and requires less time than implementing our own program,” said Partners Workshop participant Deborah Bryant, assistant dean of the University of Maryland’s College of Computer, Mathematical and Physical Sciences. “Trying to keep up with the mentors, the mentees, who’s happy, who’s not happy, the training—all of those things take quite some time. For $3,000, [MentorNet] is quite a deal.”