College Students Bringing Boost to St. Cloud Area Economy

ST. CLOUD -- The students are back on campus this week at St. Cloud State University and the St. Cloud Technical and Community College.

King Banaian is the Dean of the School of Public Affairs at SCSU. He says the return of the students will give the local economy a much needed boost, according to a study done by Minnesota State back in 2017.

The impact of the spending here from students and visitors to our campus came in at about $284 million.  We certainly don't have as many students here with more students working remotely and living remotely, so we probably haven't gotten all of that back.

Banaian says the economic impact that the SCTCC students have on the local economy is about $100 million. He says when you factor in the students from the College of St. Benedict and St. John's University all of the students combined represent about five to six percent of the St. Cloud Metro area economy.

Banaian says the 2017 student also says SCSU directly creates about 1,400 jobs in the St. Cloud area (but that number is probably lower now), and somewhere around 1,800 jobs are held by SCSU students in the St. Cloud area.

St. Ben's and St. John's students are set to start classes this Monday.