Higher Education and Economic Development Are Great Partners

Most active community folks don't think of higher education and economic development as close companions. But when you consider our definition of economic development--attracting an activity that brings new money into your community--higher education would seem to be perhaps the quintessential economic development activity.

On this page we'll develop a sketch of how town and gown controversies should be set aside to allow a university and its intellectual capital to bring you new inventions and patents that lead to community jobs.

What You Need to Know about Higher Education
and Economic Development Relationships

If you're a community leader, or a neighborhood leader in the proximity of a college, university, or technical school, make it your business to understand the strengths, weaknesses, challenges, and opportunities that are facing your local higher education institution.

I know, they're a bunch of stuffy intellectuals over there, they speak their own language, they're deliriously liberal, and the institution itself moves at a snail's pace. They all have red Persian rugs in their living rooms, and way too many books.

Oh, get over it. But if you refuse to get over it, I could suggest many more difficult ways to attract the same number of jobs into your community, if you'd like. Providing you have 10 or 20 years to implement the plan.

Remember that your local college or university provides jobs not only for elites such as faculty members, but also for janitors, cafeteria workers, people to change the light bulbs, and clerical workers. When higher education and economic development entities start brainstorming together, apprenticeships, jobs programs, facility sharing, and talent sharing coudl benefit all.

And as a footnote, remember that higher education provides you with exposure to international culture, concerts, lectures, plays, graffiti, and college bars that you wouldn't have otherwise.

How Town Needs to Help Gown

So if your local institution's strength didn’t immediately spring to mind a moment ago when we mentioned the word, make it your business to find out. Because the "town" part of the town and gown equation can make a big difference in whether a college or university succeeds.

If your technical college is well known for graphics arts, are you taking advantage of that in your community economic development promotions? But in the other direction, had you thought of a graphics art contest, exhibition, or fair where commercial artists from beyond your own city would compete or show? If you didn't know that your local institution is a graphic arts mecca, how would you have figured out you could have a graphic arts exhibition over a summer weekend?

Another instance of higher education and economic development, this time in the form of tourism, helping one another.

Say you are in a small city surrounded by rural area, but you have a great engineering school. After only a small amount of dialogue between the higher education and economic development communities, you'd know that you'd best kick your entrepreneurship training and town culture into high gear. Some savvy old-time businesspersons could sure help those techie start-ups that don't know anything about finding a good accountant.

In this instance, higher education and economic development really need to work together, if the potential for spin-offs from a technical faculty are ever to prosper.

What if Your Town Doesn't Provide
What Higher Education Needs?

First, you have to ask what the higher ed community wants in town that it doesn't find. You may be able to guess, but you might not estimate the discomfort correctly. You may think it's the lack of non-stop flights to London, when really it's the fact there are no jobs for the faculty spouses. Or vice versa.

For example, in smaller towns, the lack of a bookstore, local theatre or other arts venues, and convenient parking for visitors often are problems to the university community. In the smallest of college towns, the lack of a motel or inn near the college may make it all too easy for prospective students to skip the campus visit. And it's tough for the college to make a good impression on visiting scholars, lecturers, artists, and prospective faculty.

A university in a large urban area sometimes experiences the opposite problems. Visitors may be repulsed by fear of crime, complexity, ugliness, dirt, tasteless advertising, difficult wayfinding, and sleazy hotels. Solve those problems, and you could have a higher education winner on your hands.

But in virtually every case, the quality of the surrounding city makes a difference in how well institutions are perceived, how successful they are economically, and how high their faculty retention rate is.

So invest major effort in building a partnership between higher education and economic development, and everyone will win. Often the higher education elite will find the economic development leaders to be money-grubbing, and business leaders find the university professors insufferable, but you have to cooperate on making a great environment for higher education, one of your biggest exports, no doubt.

The community can enlist the higher ed community in resolving lifestyle problems, by the way. If you college faculty grouses about the lack of an independent bookstore, ask them to identify a budding entrepreneur among the faculty, increasing number of part-time faculty, or faculty spouses. Then support that entrepreneur with any economic development incentives you have at your disposal.

If an urban university has a real or perceived crime problem, the community can suggest that the university upgrade its emergency call box system, in return for some extra police patrols for a time.

Or the community can and should suggest they might do a better job of providing public services if the university makes a commitment to providing interns to the local government.

Retaining out-of-town graduates in your town as potential entrepreneurs also is another economic benefit, by the way. For this type of higher education and economic development synergy, now you're going to have to impress students with your quality of life. But young adult energy in town will help attract quality students.

The higher education and economic development communities should share another commonality, by the way. Both should be very concerned about lower education. If kids can't read, it's a problem in both realms. This is a great topic for early meetings between the two camps.

The point is simple: Get a higher education and economic development partnership developed, and nurture that relationship the same way all relationships are built. Get to know each other, understand one another's foibles, and enjoy each other's company.

The best story I heard about this is when a professor invited some of his international students to gather with the townspeople, whose menfolk liked to hunt. The locals and the internationals prepared the game according to their respective cuisines, and partied the night away.

The other best story (well, I have two) is when local business leaders invited the higher education leadership to an evening cocktail party with a terrific detailed presentation of local history. Sort of reversing the intellectual roles.

If Your College Doesn't Make the Grade

Higher education is a very specialized and also competitive field. If your local college or university does not seem to be making as much of a "profit" for the local economy as you expect it should be making, discrete inquiries to locales where similar institutions are located may yield important information.

Check the annual U.S. News and World Report college issue to learn the national leaders in the curricula in which your local institution claims to specialize. Your library will have other resources that allow you to obtain an independent opinion.

Admittedly much of what makes a college or university thrive is beyond local control. The quality of the faculty and the athletic teams tend to drive student interest in attendance. Smart administration also makes a world of difference in whether the institution attracts and retains good talent, and frankly in whether money is made or debt is accumulated.

So do what you can to make sure the town is complementing the strongest points about the university or college. But if your economy is college-dependent, and you find out your one institution isn't doing so hot, it's time to start making contingency plans. Just like every other employer you have, there are bad operators and good operators. And sometimes you just can't salvage the mistakes or short-sightedness of a college.

Former campuses have become office complexes, residential developments, prisons, or entire redevelopments. Occasionally a four-year campus becomes a technical college, or a K-12 educational complex. If the news is bad when you start learning more about your local institution, figure out how to survive without it.

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