THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, January 3, 1995 TAG: 9501030092
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B4 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: FAIRFAX LENGTH: Medium: 66 lines
Students and their parents who are shelling out thousands for college tuition are banking that the investment will pay off in the job market and in life. A new study suggests they are not the only beneficiaries of that higher education.
For each tax dollar Virginia spends educating a student at George Mason University, the student will return an average of $2.74 in income tax and sales revenue to Virginia over their working lives, a study by the university has found.
Because of their education at the publicly funded university in Fairfax County, the students studied will collectively earn about $2 billion more than if they had not attended college, the study found. The extra income generated in Virginia will total nearly $2.9 billion, according to the study prepared by George Mason's Institute of Public Policy.
``Investment in George Mason expands the human capital base and productive capacity of the commonwealth's labor force and it enhances quality of life and yields better than market rates of return,'' said Harrison Campbell, the senior researcher on the project.
The results are hypothetical, and involve projecting graduates' earning power far into the future. George Mason is the newest of Virginia's large public universities, founded less than 40 years ago, and few graduates have actually completed their working lives.
The report also acknowledges it may overstate some of the university's economic benefit, since a certain amount of spending on food, housing and the like would have occurred whether students received a university education or not.
Virginia contributed about $81million to George Mason last year for education and construction, or about $3,950 per student.
George Mason officials plan to use the study to bolster their case that a proposed 1.5 percent increase in state funding for the university over two years is inadequate.
Last month, university President George W. Johnson predicted the school would have a budget shortfall equal to $400 per student without significant new state funds.
``This report is intended to advance the debate on public funding for state universities through its rigorous and timely economic analysis,'' wrote Roger Stough, director of George Mason's Center for Regional Analysis, in the report's preface.
The study also calculated income of about $64 million a year that comes to Virginia as a direct result of George Mason, Campbell said. The amount includes higher tuition paid to the school by out-of-state residents, research grants funded outside the state and federal student financial aid paid to George Mason students.
The study uses the class that entered college in the fall of 1992 and figures a 45-year working life. The group of 6,139 students, including undergraduates and graduate students, will give Virginia a rate of return on its education investment of 8.6 percent, ``significantly higher than would be earned on current securities investments,'' the report said.
In the past two decades, enrollment at George Mason has increased 500 percent, to more than 22,000 in 1994. The university got roughly 6,000 applications for 1,700 spaces available in the 1995 freshman class, school officials said. by CNB