Board of Trustees to vote on increasing housing costs

The Board of Trustees will vote today to potentially finalize an increase to housing costs on campus.

The increase, if enacted, will affect future housing rates on a sliding scale, said Associate Vice President of University Communications Mark Land.

At the high end, an 8-percent increase to housing costs could occur. At the opposite end, some facilities might not experience any increase.

The potential increase comes along with the addition of new living centers, including the 3rd & Union Apartments that will open in 2013.

It also takes into consideration recent renovation of existing residence halls, such as Briscoe Quad, which, when finished, will have undergone about $40 million in changes.

Land said the administration and the trustees are trying to be responsible with the increases, which he said come in response to students’ increasing expectations and desires for certain amenities with on-campus housing.

The meeting also brought about an important announcement of the results of a study commissioned by the University.

The study revealed the economic impact the partnership between IU’s eight campuses  and IU Health had on the state of Indiana for the 2010-11 fiscal year.

The study, which cost $75,000, was commissioned by the University in 2011 to be conducted by consulting firm Tripp Umbach, a company based in Pittsburgh and independent of IU.

The University system and IU Health collectively created $11.5 billion in total economic impact, IU President Michael McRobbie said Thursday at the IU Board of Trustees meeting on the IU-Purdue University Indianapolis campus.

The report, titled “Economic Engine for Indiana: an Economic Impact Analysis,” defined “total economic impact” as measuring the dollar amount generated within the state of Indiana as a result of the IU system and IU Health.

The analysis also focused on business volume and government revenue generated in Indiana as a result of the partnership.

That $11.5 billion spent by the University in the 2010-11 fiscal year went back to the state of Indiana and breaks down into $5.9-billion worth of direct economic impact and $5.6 billion in what the report refers to as “indirect or induced” spending.

Direct expenditures account for spending on goods and services by the University, as well as by its employees, students and visitors. According to the report, the spending supports local businesses when money from those parties is spent on goods and services provided by local vendors.

“Indirect or induced” spending accounts for the money re-spent by local businesses and other recipients of the direct expenditures although, like the report’s analysis of direct expenditures, it only accounts for money spent within the state.

Paul Umbach, senior principal of Tripp Umbach, said the impact the University and IU Health had on the state of Indiana during the 2010-11 fiscal year was the greatest the firm has seen in its 25-year history.

The report also revealed the impact of the IU system and IU Health on jobs across the state.

When IU and IU Health are combined, the partnership supports 48,147 jobs directly, which refers to the number of workers employed directly by the University and IU Health.

Another 51,884 jobs are supported indirectly, accounting for jobs such as those of construction workers employed to work on University buildings or restaurants and hotels used in University business.

Both directly and indirectly, 100,031 jobs are supported by the partnership.

On its own, IU Health is the fourth-largest employer in the state, and the University is the fifth. In this instance, Wal-Mart Inc. is the largest Indiana employer.

The study also outlined the contributions of University alumni who have remained in-state, stating that IU alumni account for 50 percent of Indiana’s physicians, 75 percent of its attorneys and 90 percent of its dentists.

“This is a spectacular example of the sum of the parts being greater than the whole,” Daniel Evans, president and chief executive office of IU-Health, said in a public statement Thursday.

He added that he considers the University’s partnership with IU Health the “special sauce” that separates IU from other universities.