The economic impact of Dalton State College on the Northwest Georgia region was $108,627,435 in Fiscal Year 2009 (July 1, 2008 – June 30, 2009), according to a study conducted by Dr. Jeffrey M. Humphreys, director of economic forecasting for the Selig Center for Economic Growth in the University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business.

This newly-released study, which looked at the impact of the University System of Georgia’s (USG) 35 institutions on their regional economies, found that the USG as a whole had a $12.7 billion economic impact on the state of Georgia in Fiscal Year 2009.

According to College officials, Dalton State’s $108,627,435 million impact on the region was broken down into three categories: $38,040,872 million for personal services, $15,322,653 million for operating expenses, and $55,263,910 million in student spending.

“Dalton State is a driving economic force in Northwest Georgia, and as such has a huge impact on the region,” says Dalton State President John Schwenn. “We are continuing to see substantial enrollment growth, plus the addition of faculty and staff, so this trend will likely increase in the years to come.”

The Selig Center analyzed data collected between July 1, 2008, and June 30, 2009, to calculate the University System’s FY2009 economic impact. This work updates a similar studies conducted on behalf of The Intellectual Capital Partnership Program (ICAPP), an initiative of the Board of Regents’ Office of Economic Development. The previous report, based on FY2008 data, placed the USG’s economic impact at $12.1 billion. The first study in the series calculated the USG’s impact at $7.7 billion in FY1999. The latest $12.7 billion thus is a $5 billion increase since FY 1999 – or a growth of 65% in the system’s economic impact on Georgia’s communities.

“A college or university improves the skills of its graduates, which increases their lifetime earnings,” said study author Humphreys. “Local businesses benefit from easy access to a large pool of part-time and full-time workers. In addition, for each job created on a campus, there are 1.6 jobs that exist off-campus because of spending related to the college or university. In these ways, and many more, the University System plays a critical role in Georgia’s economic recovery.”

In addition to the $12.7 billion in total impact generated by the University System in FY2009, the study determined that Georgia’s public higher education system is responsible for 112,336  full- and part-time jobs – 2.8 percent of all the jobs in the state. Approximately 38 percent of these positions are on campus jobs and 62 percent are positions in the private or public sectors that exist because of the presence in the community of USG institutions.

“Dalton State’s economic impact on the region includes 1,143 jobs,” said Dr. Henry Codjoe, Director of Institutional Research and Planning at DSC.

Of those jobs, says Codjoe, 388 positions are filled by on-campus employees and 755 are off-campus jobs that exist due to institution-related spending.

The University System’s largest institution – the University of Georgia (UGA) with 34,885

students – has the single greatest economic impact: over $2.2 billion on the Athens-area economy, or 17 percent of the System's total statewide economic impact.

Eight institutions in the metro Atlanta area – Georgia Institute of Technology, Georgia State University, Clayton State University, Kennesaw State University, Southern Polytechnic State University, Georgia Gwinnett College, Atlanta Metropolitan College and Georgia Perimeter College – accounted for over $5.3 billion of the University System’s $12.7 billion total, and 40,740 jobs.