Career Colleges Release First-Ever Economic-Impact Study

From The Chronicle of Higher Education by Goldie Blumenstyk.

The report says the colleges, which often boast that they are the "tax-paying sector" of higher education, pay about $82-million a year in local and federal taxes. The report's authors say the figure underestimates the actual amount of taxes paid because it was calculated based on a figure for the overall fraction of revenues that all education entities pay in taxes, and most pay little or no taxes.

The study suggests that the overall economic impact of the for-profit sector approaches $39-billion, taking into account the $14.6-billion in revenue going to the colleges and the additional $4-billion that students spend beyond tuition to attend, along with the indirect impact of the higher wages earned by career-college graduates and the added value they bring to the industries where they go to work.

Complimentary copies of the report, which does not appear to be available on the Web yet, are available from Kerry Turner - kerryt@career.org - at the Imagine America Foundation.