Maybe you didn't read the whole story.  The sponsoring business can charge the J - 1 student fee's for hiring them.  Then they are usually taking out loans to pay for the costs of flying here to Alaska.  So they think their going to make good money coming here, only to soon find out they have to pay for their own room & board and other costs living here in Alaska, such as transportation.  Part of the first article talks about 6 of them each paid $300.00 a piece for rent of an unfurnished apartment.  All they had were air beds.  So they actually didn't walk away from Alaska with nearly as much money as they thought they were going to.  Some had to work 2 jobs to make ends meet.