> An urban university provides Colorado’s economy with big bang for its buck through spending, taxes, jobs, alumni contributions and giving back. BY MATT WATSON INFOGRAPHICS BY SEAN PARSONS
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RED MAGAZINE | W I N TE R 2020
In a state that is 48th in the nation in per-student public spending on higher education, Colorado universities punch well above their weight when it comes to their contributions to the local and state economies, a new analysis commissioned by Metropolitan State University of Denver shows. MSU Denver alone contributes hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands of jobs every year, an impact that is especially important to communities near the University’s downtown campus, said Kishore Kulkarni, Ph.D., a professor of economics at MSU Denver. “MSU Denver sitting in downtown Denver clearly has an advantage in terms of economic impact, not only graduating people who are already working there but graduating people who immediately get a job in the downtown area also,” he said.
