Smart Jobs Blog

One Million Smart Jobs

By Adam Gross, March 18, 2009

Rahm Emmanuel, President Obama’s chief of staff, has wryly reminded us that an economic crisis is a terrible thing to waste. Yet that is exactly what may occur without a broad commitment to the infrastructure of our nation’s colleges and universities. As we move forward to fix our economy, Congress and the Senate would be wise to acknowledge the truth of Benjamin Franklin’s adage, “An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.” More specifically, as economists and cable news pundits continue to debate the economic outcomes of the stimulus bill, it is time to reconsider the fact that investing in our nation’s university facilities would create millions of jobs now, and in the future.

The fact that universities have become the 21st century equivalent of 19th century factories is evidenced by the rise of university-fed knowledge economies across the country, from the North Carolina Research Triangle to Silicon Valley. This role of the university as economic engine is undisputed. It then seems counterintuitive that the stimulus package has billions earmarked for roads and highways, with little money identified for new classrooms or laboratories. For, unlike a road construction project, a dollar invested in new infrastructure for teaching and research creates new jobs immediately and continues to produce new jobs far into the future. Yet colleges and universities across America worry that their economic engines are sputtering, slowed down by science laboratories and classrooms that are outdated, overcrowded and inadequate.

Our universities’ facility problems may be our nation’s salvation. Consider that a coordinated commitment to building new laboratories and classrooms could easily create one million jobs in the year ahead. This investment would have immediate and long term benefits for the economic recovery of our country.

Here’s the math on how this can be done:

The construction of just one $50 million science teaching and research building will employ approximately 1,000 highly skilled construction workers for two years. Once built, this science building will employ, on average, 250 teachers, researchers and staff.

Therefore, if we were to devote $1 billion per state for the construction of similarly sized facilities, for a total of a $50 billion national investment, we would immediately create over one million construction jobs and 250,000 permanent teaching, research and staff jobs.

With 4,276 colleges and universities in the U.S. this impact could be fairly immediate. Throughout our nation there are large numbers of teaching and research building projects which are shovel-ready, to the degree that such construction could start in the next three to six months.

There is a crying need for these new facilities. About 18.3 million students will attend the nation’s 2-year and 4-year colleges and universities this year, an increase of about three million since fall 2000. However, most of our state universities and many of our private colleges are currently undersized to serve these students. In California alone, there is a current shortage of space which leaves approximately 180,000 students without a seat in the California university system. At many of our nation’s smaller liberal arts colleges, students are studying science and engineering in labs that are woefully out of date and undersized. And, college enrollment is expected to continue increasing, reaching a projected 21 million in fall 2016. Without an investment in new facilities, we will be in crisis mode to serve this kind of growth.

In addition to the immediate impact of job creation in our sinking construction sector, these new buildings would teach, train and nurture the imaginations of the industry leaders (and job creators) of tomorrow. For proof, look to the State of Maryland, the University of Maryland Baltimore (UMB) campus generates more than $1.4 billion in indirect economic impact, for a total contribution to the Maryland economy of nearly $2.6 billion annually. In fact, UMB generates more than $15 in economic activity for each $1 appropriated from state or federal funds.

Johns Hopkins University, the largest employer in Maryland, supports more than 85,000 jobs in the state. In all, Johns Hopkins adds at least $7 billion in income annually to the Maryland economy. A recent investment of $20 million in a new cancer research building at Johns Hopkins enabled the university to increase spending on cancer research by $23 million a year. That spending makes medical sense and helps save lives. It also makes business sense, with programs emanating from the building supporting 690 new Maryland jobs and generating $31 million a year in economic spinoff.

An added benefit of universities as economic engines is their stable presence in their communities. While companies in the private sector may come and go, sometimes leaving a regional economy in wreckage, colleges and universities are rooted. Within the Boston area, where eight major universities employ more than 70,000 people (more than the region’s financial services sector), many industries have downsized recently, but Boston’s universities have remained a comparatively stable source of employment, while producing a highly educated work force whose creative energy continues to spawns new enterprises. Four companies created by graduates of the area’s universities now rank among the top 25 employers in the region.

These, and hundreds of similar examples in every state, prove that investing in new university teaching and research facilities is truly smart infrastructure spending and will produce jobs today and tomorrow. President Obama has exhorted Congress to “put Americans to work doing the work America needs done…..producing jobs that help us recover today so we can prosper tomorrow….jobs that will train an army of teachers in math and science.” By investing $50 billion in new university teaching and research facilities we can begin to meet this challenge and secure the promise of a stronger economy and nation.

Tags: Economy, Education Investment Fund, Higher Education, One Million Smart Jobs, Op-Ed, Stimulus

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