This study, “Economic Contribution of America’s Community and Technical Colleges” (PDF link), was authored by CCbenefits (now EMSI) in 2004, and showcases the socioeconomic impact model (SEIM) framework used in EMSI’s college studies.

The analysis is based on a sample of 262 colleges in 14 states, representing roughly one-third of the current total enrollment in community and technical colleges in the country. The findings from the sample were used to generate results by inference for the some 1,200 colleges in the United States. Two major analyses are conducted: 1) investment analyses from the perspectives of the students and the taxpayers, and 2) economic growth analysis to determine the relative contribution to GDP by the community and technical colleges.

Some of the findings include:

• The average associate’s degree holder will earn $9,000 more annually ($325,000 lifetime) because of that degree.
• Associate’s-level education confers a number of benefits to students as well as the general public. The analysis translates the economic growth effect of community and technical college education into increased state and local government revenues (via increased tax receipts). Added to these are an assortment of social savings, e.g., avoided costs stemming from reductions in incarceration, welfare, health care support, and others.
• Taxpayers, who bear about 58% of community and technical college costs, receive a 16% return on their investment in the colleges—well above the 4% opportunity cost of funds.
• The bottom line: colleges return more to taxpayers than they cost.

In 2002, lawmakers on the Wisconsin Assembly’s budget committee began their biennial session to set the state’s spending priorities. In the wake of the dot-com bust and the 9/11 attacks, the national economy was starting to enter a recession and committee members were concerned about reducing state spending. Early in their deliberations, the committee voted to cut state funding for the state’s technical colleges by $14 million, or 10 percent.

To read on and see what role EMSI’s SEIM study played in this situation, open the full case study (PDF): Wisconsin SEIM Case Study

Ten years ago, when Dr. Robert “Rab” Thornton became Dean of Outreach Services at Housatonic Community College (HCC), the college had slow enrollment growth, very little interaction with the local business community, and low visibility in the state legislature. His duty was to reverse this trend and effectively “make an invisible college visible.”

Thornton quickly realized that one of the problems behind this was that the college primarily focused on enrollment figures when talking about its community value, and not on what stakeholders were truly interested in—economic revitalization, bottom lines, and return on investment. They were not communicating because they were speaking completely different languages. This discovery spurred Thornton to redirect HCC’s outreach efforts by looking for new ways to communicate the college’s real value to the community and state.

Read the full case study (PDF): Housatonic Community College: An urban renewal success story

Brian Kelsey, President
Civic Analytics

Brian Kelsey primarily uses Strategic Advantage to perform efficient market research for his consulting business, as well as to supply his business blog with interesting data highlights and maps. Brian finds that EMSI’s GIS module helps him communicate information effectively to audiences with wide-ranging levels of technical experience, while both the Career Pathways and Educational Analyst modules streamlined his workflow for a recent market research project. Brian turned to CP and EA when a client recently expressed interest in understanding demographic trends and workforce availability in order to locate new business branches in strategic locations. With the key data at his fingertips, Brian was able to quickly provide the client with a data-driven site selection plan.

Rose Baker, Program Manager, University Outreach
Penn State University

With the time-saving features of Strategic Advantage, Rose is able to multi-task without being spread too thin. She helps small communities with questions on their economies, trains workforce professionals on data-driven decision making, and assists continuing education professionals with program expansion decisions. Recently, Rose was able to use SA to assist a small rural community that needed to estimate how many of its jobs were driven by tourism. Using SA’s Economic Impact input/output model, Rose created an economic base report which showed 3,800 jobs driven by visitors. “Because I have Strategic Advantage, I could assist this community,” she said. “Without it, helping them would have meant a costly sacrifice of time and resources, not to mention a laborious and inefficient workflow.”

Carolyn Arnold, Institutional Research and Grants
Chabot-Las Positas Community College District (California)

Using Strategic Advantage is one way that Carolyn maximizes the efficiency and productivity of her research time. As the Coordinator of Institutional Research and Grants in a large community college, her work demands detailed, current, easily-accessible data on local demographic and economic trends. Carolyn finds that SA is a perfect fit for her needs, both (1) to provide a strong data-driven foundation for grant proposals, since she can tailor an SA report to provide relevant facts in a short timeframe; and (2) to perform program alignment and identify new program opportunities. By examining projections for high-wage occupations in her community college district’s service area, Carolyn can identify gaps in program offerings, as well as ensure that the current programs are aligned with labor market realities.

Beth Sullivan, Director of Planning and Marketing
Workforce Connections, Inc. (Wisconsin)

Strategic Advantage’s flexible database simplifies regional planning for Beth Sullivan of Workforce Connections, Inc., which provides jobseeker and employer services to western Wisconsin. Because their service area is part of a 16-county functional labor market area that includes two adjoining states (Minnesota and Iowa), Beth Sullivan relies on Strategic Advantage for streamlined analysis that aids collaboration with regional partners. Manually pooling data for 16 counties in the three states would be laborious and time-consuming at best, but SA’s customizable region definitions allow Beth to see the big picture instantly, regardless of jurisdictional boundaries. She applies this regional perspective by creating up-to-date analysis of industry clusters and creating data-driven grant applications.

Tom Tveidt, Director of Research
Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce (North Carolina)

Tom Tveidt values Strategic Advantage “for the ease in which I can perform economic development centered around data.” Before he had SA, Tom didn’t have a practical way of summarizing his area’s workforce competencies (skills, knowledge, and abilities) to businesses considering a move there. He could see the potential benefits of utilizing O*NET competency data, but there was no platform to use it practically for his needs. Now he can use the Career Pathways module in SA for instant numbers on not only the “target occupations” of a particular business, but also all “compatible occupations” which represent a broader potential labor pool. This gives the prospective business a more realistic picture of the local workforce, and using SA for this task has proven to be an invaluable way to provide relevant data in a short timeframe.

Mark Clasby, Executive Director
Haywood County Economic Development Commission (North Carolina)

Capturing the impact of business is one part of Mark Clasby’s success as an economic developer. He says Strategic Advantage is a great resource for performing impact analyses that are time- and cost-effective. Whether a business is thinking of arriving, leaving, expanding, or downsizing, Mark can use SA’s input/output model to find out the full impact of the scenario in terms of regional jobs and earnings. The results help him build a case for supporting existing industries and assisting new industries as they move to the region. With the impact analysis as a foundation, Mark can promote regional growth with decisions founded on the data.

Canada’s colleges, institutes, and polytechnics contribute CA $123.2 billion to the country’s economy every year, according to a study recently completed by Economic Modeling Specialists Inc. (EMSI). The study, which was commissioned by the Association of Canadian Community Colleges, also showed that students who attend these institutions receive a 15% return on their investment in education, while taxpayer support of the institutions offers a return of nearly 16%.

 ”This report clearly demonstrates that Canada’s colleges, institutes, and polytechnics play a vital role in keeping Canada prosperous and competitive, as well as benefiting students and their communities,” said James Knight, President of the Association of Canadian Community Colleges. “They more than repay the investment taxpayers and their governments have made.”

Other key findings highlighted by the ACCC’s media release include:

• The average annual earnings of a student with a one to two-year certificate are $36,582, or 35 per cent more than someone without a high school diploma or GED, and 12 per cent more than a student with a high school diploma. The average earnings of someone with a two to three-year diploma are $41,937, or 54 per cent more than someone without a high school diploma or GED, and 29 per cent more than a student with a high school diploma or GED.
• Colleges, institutes, and polytechnics contribute nearly $123.2 billion a year to income in Canada’s economy, roughly eight per cent of a typical year’s economic growth.
• Canada’s current workforce is enhanced by approximately 512.6 million hours of past and present college, institute, and polytechnic training.
• Taxpayers see a real-money return of 15.9 per cent on their annual investments in the colleges, institutes, and polytechnics and recover all investments in 8.7 years.
• Canada also benefits from improved health and reduced welfare, unemployment, and crime, saving the public some $215.1 million per year.

ACCC has also made the full report and associated materials available online.

Approaches to worker recruitment in the 21st century are changing, but with the right information, an effective strategy, and expert execution, the opportunities for success are abundant. This is even true in the energy sector, which is expected to experience a wave of retirements and pressing worker shortages in coming years. By using detailed national and local data, one talent management consulting firm increased its client’s pool of qualified applicants by 400% in two weeks.

Read the full case study to find out how Brian Kelsey of Civic Analytics delivered a data-driven solution to a national talent management firm.

Strategic Advantage locates talent for the energy industry (PDF)

A recent study by EMSI has shown Baltimore City Community College to have a total net impact of more than $540 million on its service area. The study was completed in January and released by the college on April 15th.

Highlights from the study showed:

• BCCC pumps $45.5 million in labor and non-labor income into the economy from operations and capital spending;
• BCCC students contribute $24.9 million in taxable income to the Maryland economy annually;
• For every dollar students spend on courses at BCCC, they will earn $4.40 in future earnings;
• BCCC saves Maryland $2.1 million each year through improved health and reduced welfare, unemployment and crime; and,
• Associate degree graduates from Baltimore City Community College who work in the region can earn $50,400 per year, 40 percent more than an individual with a high school diploma or GED.

Read the article here (Baltimore Business Journal).

EMSI is the international leader in impact studies for community and technical colleges, with over 800 studies completed for more than 500 colleges in the U.S., Canada, and the United Kingdom since 2001. Unlike many simple impact models which have been rightly criticized for inflating benefits and ignoring costs, EMSI uses a sophisticated proprietary model that requires detailed data and calculates the college’s true net impact of a college, along with a student and taxpayer investment analysis.

An EMSI gap analysis report is being used to inform a new Master Plan for Northwest Arkansas Community College in Bentonville, Arkansas. NWACC has reviewed input from multiple sources, including the EMSI report, and the consensus appears to be that the college needs to create a permanent presence in a neighboring county as well as establish a university center.

The task force got its first official look at all the compiled data, as well as information from the 2006 gap analysis, which was conducted by Economic Modeling Specialists Inc. A gap analysis looks at a community and determines what needs are being met and what needs remain unfulfilled. This is accomplished using public data and demographics, NWACC consultant Patti Mocivnik explained.

Susan Holmes, co-facilitator for the task force, said the results make the priorities quite clear. Certain types of programs, such as programs for medical professions, are clearly needed, but so is a type of program called a university center. University centers are programs in which other colleges and universities can partner with NWACC to provide their four-year degrees using NWACC facilities.

Read the full article here.

EMSI’s gap analysis drew on an integrated database of over 70 public sources to organize key demographic, economic, and labor market information for the college. The report was prepared as part of a statewide initiative that included similar reports for all Arkansas community and technical colleges.

Timely data and analysis from EMSI were critical for a recent gap analysis report performed for Kingsborough Community College in New York. The final report was created by EMSI’s partner Workforce Strategy Center, a New York based nonprofit, in the summer of 2007 and was recently released on their web site.

The report focused on tourism and hospitality, non-nursing health care, retail, and maritime industry sectors. In particular, the report helped inform the college’s newly-launched Project Welcome, an initiative designed to train students for careers in New York’s fast-growing tourism and hospitality industries. In a recent local news article, representatives from the college and Workforce Strategy Center lauded the project’s success.

Indeed, a year after the launch of the program, Project Welcome, Kingsborough Community College (KCC) is reporting success above and beyond what was initially predicted, opening the door to potential success for those just beginning their work careers as well as those making mid-life career changes.

Stuart Schulman, the director of KCC’s Center for Economic and Workforce Development, said that Project Welcome – which had been established thanks to a $1.7 million grant from the United States Department of Labor – had exceeded the federal requirements as far as the number of people trained is concerned. In addition, Schulman said that the program — which centers on a 280-hour, 10 week course — had also exceeded its goals in terms of placement.

The framework used by Workforce Strategy Center, known as “Career Pathways,” is designed to help workers get training for jobs in high-demand fields with clear opportunities for future career advancement. It has been successfully paired with EMSI’s wealth of regional labor market data in several workforce development projects around the country.

For previously posted customer snapshots, click here.

People who are new to EMSI’s Strategic Advantage web-based analysis suite can sometimes get lost in its bewildering array of data sets, features, and terminology–and lose sight of its time-saving, productivity-boosting capabilities. That’s why we’ve collected real-world examples of how our clients use Strategic Advantage to become more efficient and more informed while saving their organizations money and leveraging additional resources. [Note: The following names and case studies are used by permission for informational purposes. They do not necessarily constitute an explicit or implicit endorsement of EMSI by the people or organizations listed.]

Workforce Investment & Development

David Blumenthal, Workforce Associate for Research and Development
Center of Workforce Innovations, Inc., Indiana
The need for accessible and accurate data is one constant in the ever-changing landscape of workforce development. To meet the Center of Workforce Innovations’ needs for occupation, industry, and demographic data, David Blumenthal uses Strategic Advantage. Its broad scope helps him perform multi-county research like the “State of the Workforce” report for Northwest Indiana, while the ability to drill down to ZIP code data helps him with detailed reports for individual companies. David says he likes to use Strategic Advantage because “its user-friendly layout provides me the capability to shift between occupations and industries, with the ability to sort, filter, or trim any report I choose.” For David and many more workforce developers like him, Strategic Advantage has become an integral part in the strategic planning process.

Higher Education

Tom Prendergast, Director of Institutional Research
North Central State College, Ohio
Tom Prendergast uses Strategic Advantage (SA) for successful grant writing. Recently, he and North Central State College used SA to support the application and subsequent gain of a Regional Innovation Grant (RIG) for his region. Armed with data on the aging workforce, dislocated workers, and the increasing demand for health care services, North Central State College and the other regional partners were able to prove their case for funding with conclusive data-driven findings on their region. Tom also used SA data to support his applications for two other recent grant successes, which brought 1 million dollars to the region for bioscience research and workforce training. Currently, Tom is focusing on the implementation phase of the RIG, and he is working closely with an EMSI consulting team to formulate a plan for transitioning laid-off workers into two focus industry sectors.

Nancy Benziger Brown, Dean of Workforce Development
Walter State Community College Center for Workforce Development, Morristown TN
Nancy Brown used EMSI data to help win a $1.95 Million Community-Based Job Training Grant. In order to do this, she used Strategic Advantage to provide data on: local emerging industries, demographics, and growth rates for several different occupations. This data helped establish need, as the per capita income was below poverty level compared to the state and nation. By identifying need and focusing on Advanced Manufacturing, especially Automotive Parts Manufacturing, Nancy and her team received the CBJTG to develop training, purchase state-of-the-art equipment and begin a career center on campus.

Nancy Ness, Tech Prep Coordinator, Selland College of Applied Technology
Boise State University, Idaho
Nancy is currently using Strategic Advantage to support a data-driven framework for program planning and program justification. With a new Southwest Idaho community college set to open in 2009, Nancy and the college program managers have been using occupation data from SA to guide program offerings. As the infrastructure for this community college is created, occupation data from SA will be used to evaluate the demand for the occupations that these programs train for. In the past, Nancy has used SA to help Southwest Idaho high schools meet Perkins IV accountability requirements and for grant writing for Boise State University Selland College of Applied Technology.

Terry Newman, Director, Contract and Community Education
Gavilian College, California
Terry Newman understands the power of detailed regional data. Gavilian College is a recent recipient of a Rural Opportunities Studies Grant, and the focus of the grant is on a rural county where detailed and up-to-date data is hard to come by. Terry is using Strategic Advantage ZIP code data to better understand this underserved region. In looking at workforce projections for this county, she has unearthed several growing occupations that went unnoticed previous to the detailed analysis. With this knowledge, Gavilian College can proactively address the competencies workers will need in order to remain in the region. This analysis will become the basis for new programs in the future. Terry’s example of data-driven regional analysis proves the importance for utilizing detailed data to address the workforce and education needs of rural communities.