4 the institution’s students would find alternative education opportunities and remain in or return to the region. A sensitivity analysis of this adjustment is presented in Chapter 4. This model also reflects several changes related to how the investment analysis results are calculated for students, taxpayers, and society. The primary change was extending the estimated amount of time it takes workforce development students to find employment after leaving college. Previously, it was assumed that 100% of these students would find employment immediately after leaving the institution. In order to reflect the job market more accurately, that number has been reduced to 25%, so we now estimate that only 75% of students find employment within two years of leaving their institution. This model, as with previous versions, has various external data inputs which reflect the most current economic activity and data. These data include (but are not limited to): the taxpayer discount rate; the student discount rate; the consumer savings rate; the consumer price index; national health expenditures; state and local industry earnings as a percent of total industry earnings; income tax brackets and sales tax by state; and unemployment, migration, and life tables. All data sets are maintained quarterly, although most updates occur only once a year. These and other changes mark a considerable upgrade to the Lightcast economic impact model. Our hope is that these improvements will provide a better product for our clients – reports that are more transparent and streamlined, methodology that is more comprehensive and robust, and findings that are more relevant and meaningful to today’s audiences. While this report is useful in demonstrating the current value of SUNY Westchester Community College (SUNYWCC), it is not intended for comparison with SUNYWCC’s previous study conducted by Lightcast in 2009. Due to the extent of the changes to Lightcast’s model since 2009, differences between results from the 2009 study and the present study do not necessarily indicate changes in the value of the college. Lightcast encourages our readers to approach us directly with any questions or comments they may have about the study so that we can continue to improve our model and keep the public dialogue open about the positive impacts of education. A Note on Comparing Studies It is important to note that the changes outlined above represent important improvements to our methodology, ultimately providing more accurate and robust results. However, these changes make it difficult to directly compare past studies to the current study, with the effectiveness of the comparison decreasing as the age of the previous study increases. Additionally, in general Lightcast discourages comparisons between individual institutions and between educational systems since many factors, such as regional economic and political conditions, institutional differences, and student demographics are outside of the institution’s control. Finally, every institution is unique, meaning the results and types of impact or investment measures are tailored to the specific institution or educational system.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTM2NjgzMA==