What’s The State Economic Impact Of The University Of California? How About $82 Billion A Year.

The ten campuses and five medical centers of the University of California (UC) generate $82 billion annually in economic output for the state of California. That’s the remarkable bottom-line figure revealed in a new economic impact report conducted by Beacon Economics that was released today by the University.

The report, The University of California Economic, Fiscal and Social Impact Analysis, also includes an analysis of UC’s social impact for the state as well as its economic and fiscal contributions. It covers all of the University’s campuses and healthcare operations, supported in fiscal year 2018-19 to an all-funds budget tune of more than $37 billion.

Among some of the report’s key findings:

• Over a half-million jobs in California (529,119 to be exact) — one in every 45 — are supported by indirect and induced UC spending;
• Those jobs generate $37.6 billion in labor income;
• UC-related spending also produced $11.7 billion in tax revenue for local, state, and federal governments;
• Every dollar the state of California invests in UC generates over $21 in economic output, including nearly $10 in labor income;
• UC is the state’s third-largest employer, directly employing about 229,000 full- and part-time faculty and staff;
• About 74% of UC undergraduate alumni stay in California and are employed in high-demand fields including health care, education, technology and business;
• Every $1 in state support corresponded to $1.33 in non-tuition- related personal student spending in 2018-19. In 2018-19, UC students spent $5.2 billion out-of-pocket on non-tuition-related regional goods and services throughout California.

Beyond the brute financial figures, the report also touts the University’s impact on research, health care, and educational access. As examples,

• UC runs the largest academic health system in the U.S., and the fourth- largest health care delivery system in California. It had more than 8.1 million outpatient visits, including 349,000 emergency room visits in 2019-20.
• UC researchers produce an average of five inventions per day;
• To date, UC alumni have been responsible for founding 1,239 start-up companies;
• In 2018-19 alone, royalty and fee income from UC startups totaled $103.8 million;
• About 40% of UC undergraduates are the first in their family to attend college, and 37% come from low-income families;
• UC undergraduate alumni earn $9,300 more annually than individuals who hold a bachelor’s degree from another institution and work in California, and UC graduate alumni earn $35,400 more annually than individuals who work in California and hold a graduate or professional degree from another institution,

“UC’s economic ripple effect is so large that it touches every region in the state, including those without a campus or medical center,” said UC President Michael V. Drake in the official release from the University. “Beyond economic impact, the University’s contributions in health, innovation and social equity are even more important to the lives of Californians.”

The UC story can be repeated over and over – albeit not at equivalent magnitude – at thousands of American colleges and universities. The economic and social impact of the nation’s higher education institutions is an achievement of enormous collective magnitude.

While most institutions will not be able to rival the University of California’s sophisticated documentation of its contributions to that impact, they all have their own important stories to tell, chronicling why American universities are so important to the nation’s strength and vitality.

Those stories also show why, with state and federal budgets under historically severe pressure from the pandemic and the resulting economic slowdown, continued investments in those institutions are as essential as ever.