28 Chapter 2: Economic impacts on the Westchester County economy instruction and the associated accumulation of human capital. The initial effect of alumni is comprised of two main components. The first and largest of these is the added labor income of SUNY WCC’s former students. The second component of the initial effect is comprised of the added non-labor income of the businesses that employ former students of SUNY WCC. We begin by estimating the portion of alumni who are employed in the workforce. To estimate the historical employment patterns of alumni in the county, we use the following sets of data or assumptions: 1) settling-in factors to determine how long it takes the average student to settle into a career;11 2) death, retirement, and unemployment rates from the National Center for Health Statistics, the Social Security Administration, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics; and 3) state migration data from the Internal Revenue Service.12 The result is the estimated portion of alumni from each previous year who were still actively employed in the county as of FY 2021-22. The next step is to quantify the skills and human capital that alumni acquired from the college. We use the students’ production of CHEs as a proxy for accumulated human capital. The average number of CHEs completed per student in FY 2021-22 was 5.1. To estimate the number of CHEs present in the workforce during the analysis year, we use the college’s historical student headcount over the past 40 years, from FY 198283 to FY 2021-22. We apply a 40-year time horizon to include all alumni active in the county workforce who have not reached the average retirement age of 67. The time horizon, or number of years in the workforce, is calculated by subtracting SUNYWCC’s student oldest cohort average age (27 years per Lightcast’s study for FY 2006-07) from the retirement age of 67. However, because the alumni impact is based on credits achieved and not headcount, we calculate and use an average age per credit rather than per student. We then inform this average age by the historical student average age from SUNYWCC’s economic impact study conducted by Lightcast for FY 2006-07. We multiply the 5.1 average CHEs per student by the headcounts that we estimate are still actively employed from each of the previous years.13 Students who enroll at the college more than one year are counted at least twice in the historical enrollment data. However, CHEs remain distinct regardless of when and by whom they were earned, so there is no duplication in the CHE counts. We estimate there are approximately 3.6 million CHEs from alumni active in the workforce. Next, we estimate the value of the CHEs, or the skills and human capital acquired by SUNYWCC alumni. This is done using the incremental added labor income stemming from the students’ higher wages. The incremental added labor income is the difference between the wage earned by SUNYWCC alumni and the alternative wage they would 11 Settling-in factors are used to delay the onset of the benefits to students in order to allow time for them to find employment and settle into their careers. In the absence of hard data, we assume a range between one and three years for students who graduate with a certificate or a degree, and between one and five years for returning students. 12 According to a study performed by Pew Research Center, people who have already moved are more likely to move again than people who do not move. Therefore, migration rates are dampened to account for the idea that if they do not move in the first two years after leaving the college, then they are less likely to migrate out compared to the average person. 13 This assumes the average level of study from past years is equal to the level of study of students today. Lightcast used data provided by SUNY WCC for a previous study to estimate students’ credit load in prior years.
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