Alistair Houghton: How students boost the local economy
Source: Alistair Houghton - Liverpool Daily Post
Walking to work the other morning, I had to step off the pavement to avoid a juggler practising enthusiastically on the pavement.
“Aha”, I said to myself. “The students are back again.”
There seems to be a vocal minority in every city that loves to decry “the students”. But universities, and the students who study at them, are vital to our economy.
The city simply feels busier when the students – 50,000 of them in total, according to Liverpool Vision – are back. Coming in from south Liverpool, the buses are fuller and the whole place seems somehow livelier.
Shopkeepers and landlords must rejoice when the students return, as, of course, must the bartenders.
That simple spending boost is a clear benefit to the city. But, as the universities in Liverpool and beyond will tell you, universities provide far more for their communities than just cash splashed by students.
My anecdotal observations are all very well, but universities have the figures to prove it. Research, after all, is what they’re good at.
Last year, Universities UK published a report, Making an Economic Impact: Higher Education and the English Regions, showing that universities in the North West provided the equivalent of 32,308 jobs directly.
The report estimates the total economic output of North West universities to be £2.6bn. But, crucially, they generated another £3.17bn in other industries in the UK, with £2.63bn of that staying in the region.
The University of Liverpool, Liverpool John Moores University and Liverpool Hope University are all keen to stress that they are far more than just teaching venues – they are drivers of our economy.
Think of the research that could generate so many jobs in the future, as researchers leave the university to set up their own firms and create jobs – at places such as the new Biocampus, at the new Royal Liverpool Hospital.
And then there are the international students coming in to the North West. The region hosted over 30,000 students from outside the UK in 2007/8, and they spent an estimated £205m off-campus.
But it’s not just about the money. If those students love Liverpool, then they could stay, or even encourage more of their countrymen and women to stay. The intangible benefits could be huge.
The student benefit stretches far beyond Liverpool. Professor Tim Wheeler, vice-chancellor of the University of Chester, said his institution “is recognised as having contributed between the university and its students at least £160m per year to the local economy, benefiting its students, staff, the city and the sub-region.”
And, says Prof Wheeler, students’ worth “should be measured in far more than financial terms”. That chimes with Chester Renaissance chief executive Rita Waters’s vision for her city – she believes students, if they can be persuaded to stay in Chester, could give the place a new lease of life.
Out in Ormskirk, Edge Hill University commissioned a report showing that the University generates some £75m in Gross Value Added (economic output) for West Lancashire, and supports the equivalent of more than 1,500 jobs.
That number doesn’t include the spending of the 1,800 part-time students who live in West Lancashire – the report estimates they generate annual spending of some £16m annually.
So we should cherish our universities for the great revenue generators they are. And we should welcome the student influx that so invigorates Liverpool and the region every year.
After all, with students now facing huge tuition fee hikes, they’ll need all the love they can get.
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