Making an impact: Indiana's colleges and universities quietly but significantly boost the state's economy - by about $6 billion.

• Author: Mayer, Kathy
• Position: Includes related article on off-campus credit programs

Let's play, "What if ...," the popular sport of fiction writers such as Stephen King. He weaves fantastic tales by asking, "What if a car came to life?" or "What if a cat had more powers than we think?"

Let's ask, "What if 294,000 students weren't enrolled in Indiana's 44 colleges and universities?"

The tale would be as gruesome as any horror novel. One estimate: Indiana's economy would drop by as much as $6 billion annually. Or, we'd lose the equivalent of the adult population in two or three of our more robust counties, as well as all the associated economic activity.

Economic ingredients in the higher-education formula include university payroll, supplies, construction expenses, student expenditures, money spent by campus visitors and the ripple effects of each.

Higher education's claim to being a major player in Indiana's economy is well supported: by the actual dollars spent by schools, students and visitors; by the assistance many universities provide Indiana's businesses; by the draw the presence of these institutions has in recruiting firms to Indiana; and in some cases, by a university's direct participation in economic-development activities.

For some communities, such as Winona Lake in Kosciusko County, North Manchester in Wabash County or Hanover in Jefferson County, towns might not even exist if it weren't for the colleges.

Winona Lake's population is just 2,800, and 900 of them are Grace College students. North Manchester's population of 6,000 includes 700 students and 200 employees at Manchester College.

"Private colleges are all over the state, in every region and in some very small towns," says Greg Fawcett, director of policy analysis for the Independent Colleges and Universities of Indiana Inc. He mentions Rensselaer, Angola and Oakland City, for example. "Colleges are a very important element in these communities."

In many Indiana cities, universities rank among the top employers. In Lafayette/West Lafayette, Purdue University's nearly 17,000 full- and part-time workers make it the county's largest employer. Notre Dame's 3,600 full-time employees make it the largest employer in the entire Michiana area. Valparaiso University is second only to Porter Memorial Hospital in that county. Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis is the fourth-largest employer in the capital city. Statewide, Indiana University, with 16,428 full-time employees, is the fifth-largest employer.

"We sort of are Upland," says Al Smith, Taylor University's vice president for business and finance. Indeed, the Grant County town's population is only about 3,300. Taylor has some 1,800 students and 300 employees in Upland, as well as another 400 students and nearly 100 employees at its Fort Wayne campus.

Statistics like these lead Fawcett to say, "Education is a primary game, a primary element in some communities, and for the state of Indiana, education is a very large component of the economy."

The $6 billion economic-impact figure for...