College students in the greater Philadelphia region (meaning everything from Paoli to Princeton) contribute $2.2 billion, or about $8,000 per year per student, to the regional economy. (Parents, can you imagine?!! The answer, probably and painfully, is yes. Think about the book bill alone!) This statistic comes from Select Greater Philadelphia, which today released a study showing how higher education impacts the greater region's economy. Select Greater Philadelphia is an organization that markets the area to businesses. By the way, that $8,000 does not include room, board and tuition.
The group points out that the higher education sector contributes almost 7 percent of the region's jobs, or 210,600 jobs, which average $63,200 in annual pay. The gross economic impact is $15.2 billion in the larger region, which it defines as stretching from Mercer County to Salem County in New Jersey, and including the city and its surrounding counties in Pennsylvania.
Beyond the $15.2 billion is the $3.7 billion set aside for capital projects at area colleges and universities over the next five years. These projects will employ in 5,555 on construction sites, indirectly providing work for 4,200 more. The area's schools typically spend between $400 million and $500 million on capital projects, the study says.
All this spending produces quite the education machine, churning out 67,169 degrees in 2004-05 academic year, the most recent year included in the study. Of those, nearly a third were advanced degrees, which yield the highest salaries for their recipients, the study said.
How many of pizza-eaters are there in the area? All together 359,511 full and parttime students are enrolled in area colleges, the study said.
