Post-secondary institutes in North Bay have a value beyond just a diploma.
An impact study by Nipissing University economic professor Chris Sarlo says the combined economic impact of the university and its cross-campus neighbour Canadore College made a $172 million local impact last year. The economics professor attributes it to a mix of new construction, institutional procurement, employee wages, student and visitor spending.
In recent years, both schools have become a magnet for government dollars.
In the next three years, there's $66 million in capital projects on the books including a new library, student and media centres, a research and academic wing along with upgrades to Canadore's Commerce Court campus, a new residence and a renovated athletics facility.
Sarlo says those projects will inject about $100 million into the local economy.
The schools are North Bay's third largest employer with the combined payroll of the 827 full-timers amounting to $35.2 million. Both the college and university spend $25.3 million on local purchases.
More significantly, student spending is $47.5 million with campus visitors spending $3.6 million. "The spending of students is perhaps the most significant portion," with 4,500 full-timers at Nipissing, and 3,500 at Canadore, paying for food, accommodations and entertainment.
Within two years, the total economic impact of the two schools could jump to $200 million annually. The influx of students arriving each September bumps North Bay's population by 10 per cent, something that's most noticeable in a town of 54,000.
For Sarlo, known most for his studies on poverty, determining the schools' impact for an economic snapshot involved a complex methodology, but also a straight-forward approach from a reverse angle.
"If Canadore and Nipissing were to disappear, how much would be lost to the local economy?"
No doubt, attaching dollar figures on an institution's economic impact certainly helps in capital fundraising campaigns like the $7 million new Learning Library.
Overall, post-secondaries have benefited because of government's commitment to education, as well as the two schools expanding their programming in education, arts, science, business administration, nursing and adding graduate programs.
"It's been quite remarkable," says Sarlo, a Nipissing grad himself, who's been on faculty for 24 years. "When I started here we had a few hundred students, about 400 to 500 and about two or three dozen faculty. It's grown to more than 100 faculty at Nip and more 4,000 full-time students."
Favourable annual write-ups in Maclean's magazine's university guide doesn't hurt North Bay's and Nipissing's reputations as a centre for strong programming with a high level of student satisfaction in degree programs. Yet not everything should be reduced to dollars, he says.
"The economic spinoffs in the community shouldn't take away from the college and university's main role as a centre of learning, intellectual and cultural activities.
"However it does draw students locally and from far away and that does have a positive impact and it's important to measure that."
The institutions have enjoyed a unique sense of cooperation since both campuses opened side-by-side in 1967.
The two schools are practically grafted onto one another with a shared gymnasium, cafeteria, bookstore and a soon-to-be-constructed joint library, expected to turn sod this fall in time for a 2010 ribbon-cutting.
It's also commonplace to have transfers into degree programs. Sarlo says he sees about a dozen Canadore business diploma grads each year entering the degree program at Nipissing. "The degree of co-operation is quite amazing that's a model for Canada with joint programs and physical space."
