Selig Center: students bring $191 million to city
The report, commissioned by the Georgia Intellectual Capital Partnership Program and adjusted for inflation, includes spending for employees’ salaries and benefits, operating supplies and expenses and other budgeted expenditures. These budgeted expenses include student spending, construction projects and other similar expenses.
Also considered in this value is the “multiplier effect,” which “capture(s) the impact of the initial round of spending plus the impacts generated by successive rounds re-spending of those initial dollars,” according to the Selig Center’s report.
Dr. Ken Farr, an economics professor and department chair, explains the “multiplier effect” in simple terms.
“If the university gives me $1,000 dollars,” Farr said, “I’m going to spend a good portion of it. Most of that money will be spent locally. Then, the people who get this money will be able to spend it again within the community.”
The report also tallies the jobs created by each university both directly and indirectly. For example, it takes into account the professors as well as construction workers contracted by the schools. This total number for GCSU comes to an employment impact of 1,960 jobs.
The university’s presence could account for the economic differences between Baldwin County and its neighbors. Many neighboring counties, especially Hancock, have distinctly felt the shock from the international financial crisis.
“Milledgeville serves as a hub,” Farr said, “Many of the neighboring cities come here for economic opportunities.”
Though GCSU’s economic impact on Milledgeville is quite significant, many other universities in Georgia introduce much more money into their own local economies. Some of the larger universities, which the report classifies as “research universities,” such as University of Georgia, Georgia Institute of Technology and Georgia Southern University have an obviously larger impact due to the increased size of the schools’ infrastructure and the presence of larger student bodies.
“GCSU does not necessarily have an enormous quantity of economic impact on Milledgeville,” Farr said. “The quantity is definitely significant, but the more significant factor here is the quality of its impact.”
Posted by Colonnade Archives
on Apr 24 2009. Filed under News.
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