Study: LSU’s impact on parish was $13M in 2017

There’s green in the purple of gold of LSU, as a recent study points out, in each and every parish of Louisiana.

For example, the state’s flagship university’s economic impact on Iberia Parish was nearly $13 million in 2017, according to the four-month study by the LSU Economics & Policy Research Group at the E.J. Ourso College of Business. Results of the study, which was completed in February, were released the last week of May.

Statewide, LSU has an economic impact of $5.1 billion. Researchers made a point to pinpoint the value parish by parish (64 parishes) this time, according to Stephen Barnes of Baton Rouge, director of the LSU Economics & Policy Research Group.

“We’ve been doing the study every two or three years on the economic impact of LSU. Each time we come back to look at the economic impact of LSU, we always try to dig a little deeper and look more closely at how LSU really plugs into the state’s economy,” Barnes said Wednesday morning from his LSU office in Baton Rouge.

“So for this year, we did something new and looked at how LSU connects to each parish in the state. We focused on where LSU employees (and graduates) live and work.”

Barnes, 37, headed up the five-member research team that included another professor and three full-time researchers, all who relied on data from all the computer systems they had access to, he said. For the first time, their work also calculated the collective economic impact of all eight LSU campuses at the parish level, he said.

During the 2017 fiscal year, LSU supported more than $5.1 billion in Louisiana economic output, $1.9 billion in statewide earnings and an estimated 41,006 direct and indirect annualized jobs, the study reported.

LSU President F. King Alexander said, “This study demonstrates that LSU is found in every parish of our state, helping to solve the biggest challenges we face in Louisiana. Through education and research, we are creating the economy of tomorrow by improving today’s quality of life.”

The study excluded the fiscal impact of LSU’s athletics and other factors that surely would increase LSU’s economic impact, including the role of college graduates and faculty as job creators, the role of the university in bringing in outside talent and business and the collective lifetime earnings of all LSU graduates.

The LSU economic benefits, according to the study, encompass the impact of current LSU operations throughout the state as well as the long-run benefits that a leading research university offers to drive economic growth and the accumulation of human capital, the study reported.

LSU’s statewide campuses and facilities attracted  more than 45,000 students and employed approximately 20,366 faculty, staff and workers during the 2016-17 fiscal year, according to the study.

The university’s economy impact in Iberia Parish totaled $12,998,518. For St. Martin Parish it was $5,643,240 and for St. Mary Parish it was $983,785.

Two big influences on Iberia Parish’s total are the LSU AgCenter here as well as the number of LSU graduates from the parish in the Class of 2016, Barnes said.

“As you would expect, LSU employees are concentrated very heavily around the main campuses but we have AgCenter offices across the state and with roughly 20,000 employees, there turn out to be quite a few who live farther from campuses and that leads to employee spending back home farther from main campus locations,” he said.

The LSU AgCenter’s 2017 operations statewide supported nearly $230 million in economic output along with more than $100 million in earnings and 2,061 jobs, the study reported.

“So when we look at Iberia, we have an AgCenter office there. It has people living and working right there in Iberia. When you think about the AgCenter office, that staff is actively involved in the community,” Barnes said, noting of the 12 employees at the local AgCenter, 10 live in Iberia Parish.

“Some have regional job functions who serve Iberia and other parishes in that region. On the flip side, we may have some (LSU employees) who live in Iberia and commute to LSU.”

For example, he said, there is a total of 35 LSU employees residing in Iberia Parish. The number includes those who work at the main campus in Baton Rouge, LSU-Alexandria, LSU-Eunice and the LSU Health Sciences Center in New Orleans, he said.

There is a domino effect for spending locally to regionally to statewide, which benefits businesses big and small, beginning with where the employees live.

“There are going to be benefits to businesses across the state who pick up additional work thanks to large-scale activities and spending,” he said. “The lesson to take away from the study is we all have a connection to and benefit from LSU’s presence in the state.”