Another thing I meant to add is that the problem is you have "scientists" who don't know how to make a page pay for itself. They should set up Googleads on the pages and I'd be willing to bet with that massive amount of people coming through, it might not pay for itself, but it certainly would help offset a goodly chunk of expenses. They could solicit paid sponsors or partnerships with commercial sites to help offset even more.

There's a lot they CAN do to make it pay for itself.

The problem there is that may rankle them because of the principle of it.

I started using Google ads -- not obnoxiously, but around the lower edges and bottom of my pages -- and I was shocked that the first month I made more than enough on the ad revenue to pay for my monthly host fees. In my case (embroidery designs and tutorials) all I have to do is offer a new freebie every week or so and people flock to the site. In a case like hurricane season, they would get MORE than enough people coming to the site to offset the view/click ratio. They can link with popular sites to get even more traffic.

In this day and age, "paying" for a site is no longer an excuse if they take the time to look into the options. And that's only one option of many.