A new report from the Conference Board of Canada indicates university activities in the Windsor region contribute $2.1-billion a year to the local economy.
Michael Burt, Vice President, The Conference Board of Canada, says it works out to 12,716 jobs being supported each year in the region as a result of university activities and 13.1 per cent of the local GDP in the area.
But university activities is not defined as simply just what's going on at the University of Windsor, it also includes graduates from any other university who now call the region home and the impact of their spending in the area.
The report assessed the economic impact three different ways - spending at universities including operations and income premiums people earn when the graduate from a university, the benefits of extra earnings people receive after graduating, and the economic impact of Research and Development spending.
Burt says a university graduate in the Windsor region makes 70 per cent more than those with just a high school diploma.
"That's a significant contributor to the economic impacts in the region because that means people have more money to spend. It leads to impacts beyond their personal incomes because they're able to spend more on housing, leisure, restaurants and all those sorts of things," he says.
In 2015, 33,217 Ontario university graduates were working in the region. On average, they earned $73,025 in employment income, while the average high school graduate earned $42,670, representing a premium of $30,355. Ontario universities support $1 billion in additional annual earnings in the region, equivalent to 6.1 per cent of GDP, according to the report.
Burt says the footprint that comes from the operations from the University of Windsor is a significant contributor to the local economy.
"That goes beyond what the university is doing itself, but also things like tourism activity as people come in for convocation and those sorts of things. The presence of the university is a significant contributor to economic activity in the city," he says.
Spending from university activities generated $455 million in taxes for the federal government, $431 million in taxes for the provincial government, and $102 million in taxes for municipal government(s) during the 2018–2019 period, according to the report.
The report examine 15 regions in Ontario and found the combined impact of spending in Ontario from university activities ($45.6 billion) and human capital development ($50.6 billion) is $96.2 billion annually, corresponding to 11.7 per cent of provincial GDP during the 2018–2019 period.
University activity in Windsor generates $2.1-billion for local economy: report - AM800 (iHeartRadio)
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