University officials claimed that alumni and political pressure had nothing to do with the move to remove Smoot, but Thomas Graham, a Purdue trustee later said, “Not only did I get a whole bunch of letters, I’d go down to cash a check at the bank and an old friend would grab (me) by the front of the shirt and tell (me), ‘Now dammit, you know right from wrong.

Ultimately the Osmun Commission decided over the opposition of administration members that while Hovde had the authority to fire Smoot, the university did not follow due process.

Its rent-free use that had been in place since 1933 of windowless offices in the basement (Room B-50) of the Purdue Memorial Union would end in 1969 and the organization paid rent to the University until moving out in May 1989.

A critical point came in 1975 when the newspaper went to free campus-wide circulation, expanding market coverage and gaining significant advertising income.

By 1988, revenues had grown substantially and the newspaper began construction on the 22,500-square-foot (2,090 m2) facility that it now occupies, but no longer owns, at 460 Northwestern Avenue in West Lafayette.

During the 2021–2022 academic year, the Exponent was ranked in ninth place for U.S. college newspapers for the most organic traffic, with 86,465 website visits.