As the largest university in the world’s leading knowledge economy, the California State University’s impact tells an incredible story. The impact of CSU-related expenditures alone is nearly $17 billion annually, and the CSU returns $5.43 to the California economy for every dollar the state invests. Nearly 150,000 California jobs are supported by these expenditures.
When the impact of the higher earnings of CSU graduates is considered, the impact rises to $70.4 billion annually, and supports more than 485,000 jobs. The tax impact of this combined spending impact is 1.7 times greater than the state’s annual investment in the CSU, making continued support of the CSU by the state critical to the future of California.
The campuses in each region contribute to the regional as well as the statewide economy. All campuses purchase goods and services from outside their immediate region, and some more than others. This loss of local impact is captured by the model as a regional “leakage” that impacts neighboring regions. By assessing both the local, regional, and statewide impact, the total impact of each campus can be fully understood.
This section of the website presents the key direct and total economic impacts for each of the eight regions defined by this study on their immediate local economy, neighboring regions and the state as a whole. The regions were defined primarily on geographical and economic grounds, by grouping together California counties with a common economic base, and follow the same regions that were defined in the CSU’s 2004 economic impact analysis. The impacts for the regions vary based on the proportional spending by the campus and the numbers of out-of-area students and alumni.