An article in the Guardian covers the excitement that is building among English colleges regarding the new UK-specific SEIM model created by EMSI/CCbenefits. Following a very successful pilot study conducted for Warwickshire College, some 50 more colleges have commissioned similar studies.

The company started work on data provided by the college in December last year. In May, the results were made public and were impressive, Morgan says. “My college was found to put £125m each year into the Warwickshire economy.”

This was based on the earning capacities over a working lifetime of 30 years of the colleges’ graduates who had gained qualifications there. The college was also assessed as yielding a return rate of 6% on every tax pound invested in it.

These were the key economic impacts. In addition were the savings made in healthcare and judicial costs by the colleges’ graduates because educated people tend to be fitter and commit less crime, Morgan says.

Read the full article.

Corporate incentive packages have long been a standard economic development tool, but regional leaders are giving them increasing scrutiny following well-publicized reports of incentive deals gone bad (see, for example, the regular “Incentive Watch” entries on Ed Morrison’s EDPro blog).

Now Bob Orr, a North Carolina gubernatorial candidate, is promising to slash generous tax and cash incentives (especially involving intra-state competition for businesses), increase the transparency of the incentive process, and divert more state funding specifically to employer-customized workforce training.

RALEIGH, N.C. — An end to economic incentives programs and more money for worker training are among the goals of Bob Orr, a former state Supreme Court justice who is seeking the Republican nomination for governor.

Orr, who is leading a lawsuit challenging economic incentives for Dell Inc., said Monday that if elected he’ll work to bar local governments from using special payments or tax breaks to lure existing companies elsewhere in the state to relocate. County and city officials also would have to make public more details about incentive deals before they are considered, he said.

Link to article.

Read the full press release.

EDMONTON, ALBERTA–(Marketwire - Oct. 5, 2007) - The Alberta economy receives roughly $13 billion in income each year as a result of spending associated with learning provided by colleges and technical institutions and their students. This figure amounts to 5.5% of the total income in the provincial economy. . . .

CCbenefits is a leading provider of socioeconomic impact and strategic planning tools to support community colleges and technical institutes. In this study, commissioned by the Association of Alberta Colleges and Technical Institutes, CCbenefits applied a comprehensive economic model designed to quantify the economic benefits of colleges and technical institutions and translate these into common sense benefit/cost and investment terms.

EMSI and CCbenefits are now a single company with the mission of applying high-quality data and analysis to regional development issues. If you have any questions about the merger, please contact us at 1-866-999-3674.

The State Science and Technology Institute (SSTI) is holding their annual conference on October 18-19 in Baltimore. The mission of SSTI is to support professionals in technology-based economic development (TBED).

Interesting  sessions include “Community Colleges’ Role in TBED,” “The Future of University Tech Transfer,” “What’s Exciting about Manufacturing,” and more. The 2007 Excellence in TBED Awards will also be presented.

EMSI will be there to demonstrate its integrated tools and data, which support strategic partnerships among colleges, workforce boards, and economic development groups.

It appears that Virginia is the latest state to explore initiatives to bridge workforce, education, and economic development.

Virginia’s community college system should coordinate the state’s far-flung effort at workforce development, Gov. Timothy M. Kaine said today.

Currently, Kaine said, 22 state agencies are involved in workforce development. . . .

Kaine made the proposal at the fall conference of the Virginia Economic Developers Association.

Link

An article at Inside Higher Ed profiles the president of Lord Fairfax Community College in Virginia, who appears to be breaking new ground in private fundraising efforts. Its goal for 2007 alone is to raise $1 million, while its foundation already has $9 million in assets. The college is just beginning to explore the potential of its large alumni network.

“The fastest growing area in community college development right now is in the alumni affairs area,” says Steven Budd, president of New Hampshire Community Technical College at Claremont and also the board president for the Council for Research Development, an affiliate organization of the American Association of Community Colleges focused on fund raising. “Alumni programs all over the country are really being beefed up.”

And as such, the role of the community college president is changing, in terms of how presidents spend their time, why they’re hired and even how long they spend in the job. Budd, for instance, came to his current college by way of an assistant vice president for advancement position at Massachusetts’ Springfield Technical Community College. More and more, he says, institutional development is becoming a pathway to the two-year-college presidency.

At EMSI/CCbenefits, we’ve found that one of the best ways for a college to increase its visibility for fundraising is to conduct a college impact study, which measures the socioeconomic benefits that the college provides to its entire community—including students, taxpayers, and businesspeople.

Minnesota is taking an ambitious, integrated approach to solving future workforce shortages:

St. Paul – To ensure that state government is able to successfully carry out its mission now and in the future, Governor Tim Pawlenty today signed an executive order that requires all state agencies to conduct workforce planning to deal with potential labor shortages. The number of state employees retiring annually has increased by 32 percent over the last five years. . . .

The Governor’s executive order requires all executive branch agencies to work with the Department of Employee Relations (DOER) to develop and implement workforce plans. DOER will assist agencies in creating their plans while coordinating an exchange of information between agencies to share resources and to address future work shortages and technology issues.

Link to press release.

Meanwhile, Oklahoma has also announced its goals for developing workforce development partnerships that include education and economic development perspectives. Like Minnesota, it’s looking ahead at demographic trends that reveal a looming labor supply crunch.

Oct. 3, 2007 – The Governor’s Council for Workforce and Economic Development approved a broad set of goals this week aimed at creating a full pipeline of skilled workers to meet the current and future demands of Oklahoma businesses.

Dubbed “Grow Oklahoma,” the approved initiatives are as follows:

• Growing talent, skills and knowledge;
• Growing and delivering solutions for talent recruitment and retention;
• Growing awareness and success of the effort to align workforce, education and economic development.

Read the full release.

Palm Beach Community College has revolutionized its strategic planning process using EMSI’s integrated regional data suite, Strategic Advantage. The system has empowered Palm Beach CC’s institutional research and effectiveness staff to access and digest a wide array of information that previously would have taken hundreds of research hours to assemble and present. “Time-saving” and “cost-effective” are two of the key terms they use to describe EMSI’s solution.

Read more (PDF): Palm Beach Community College’s Data-Driven Approach to Effective Program Planning

Visit EMSI at the LMI Forum hosted by the Labor Market Information Training Institute, November 6-8 in Sacramento.

For more information to register, see the Institute’s web site.

This brief document reviews the methodology behind EMSI’s input/output multipliers in comparison with IMPLAN, RIMS II, and REMI’s PolicyInsight.

Read the full PDF here: EMSI Input-Output Multipliers Comparison