University of Arizona delivers Big Game-level bucks to Tucson’s economy
Jenny Lee, vice president for Arizona International and dean of International Education, says international students “bring diversity and global perspectives to the workforce, which is very necessary in today’s interconnected world.”
(Arizona International - Danny Vander Ploeg/Submitted)
This story originally appeared on Inside Tucson Business.
Last year, a study done by Tempe-based Rounds Consulting Group revealed that the UA’s astronomy and space sciences operations alone generate nearly as much money for the local economy every year as a Super Bowl.
It’s never an easy calculation to determine how much a city’s educational system contributes to its business sector and economy. Researchers commonly measure the contribution of a city’s colleges and universities using a combination of economic impact studies, workforce development analysis and innovation and entrepreneurship metrics.
“The University of Arizona has an incredible economic impact in our region with our talented graduates entering Arizona’s workforce,” said UA president Robert C. Robbins. “Our contributions to the state’s high-tech workforce are a point of pride.” Robbins also points to its research and development expenditures — $955 million in 2023. “This benefits our state through high-paying jobs, exciting community opportunities and the foundations for new industries in Arizona.”
Kris Hanning
Elliott Cheu, interim senior vice president of research and innovation at the university, echoes that assessment.
“As a Research 1 university and a land-grant institution, the university not only invests in the foundational success of our students, but also provides a return on investment to our state by preparing a high-quality workforce, bringing funding, partnerships and jobs into our economy.”
But the figures on the UA’s space sciences school, coming out just prior to Glendale hosting Super Bowl LVII, struck a timely metric, estimating the total yearly economic output of the university’s space sciences operations at $560.5 million, compared to the roughly $600 million in new dollars pumped into the local and state economies by the big game.
The report also sparked some friendly competition from UArizona’s other colleges and departments, when their head honchos spoke with Inside Tucson Business this month to stress that their programs, too, regularly generate Super Bowl numbers for the city’s economy.
“We are the group between the university and essentially getting impact from what’s happening here out into the world,” boasted Doug Hockstad, associate vice president of Tech Launch Arizona, the university arm that commercializes inventions stemming from UA research and innovation. Hockstad pointed to a 2022 study, also produced by Rounds, which stated that startups and business generated through TLA supported over 2,500 jobs and $561 million in labor income between 2017 and 2021.
“It’s what is referred to as ‘technology transfer’ in the universities. And over the last 10 years, we’ve had significant impact.”
Since its strategic overhaul in 2012, led by the hiring of Dave Allen and subsequently Hockstad, TLA has focused on nurturing the university’s potential to foster appreciable economic growth. Hockstad cites as an example Codelucida, a Tucson-based company that’s revolutionizing the use of flash memory with its advanced error correction technology.
“In their growth phase, they’re getting money from the government in the form of SBIR (Small Business Innovation Research) and STTR (Small Business Technology Transfer) funds, they’re getting money from investors, and then they’re spending that money in the ecosystem, either on salaries or on research or on production.”
Avery Therapeutics is another Tucson startup TLA has helped get off the ground, which Hockstad says is already making strides in health care with a groundbreaking patch designed to repair damaged heart muscle, a development that could significantly alter treatment paradigms for heart disease.
“The patch sitting in a petri dish will actually beat, because it’s imbued with cardiac stem cells — it’s a really cool thing to see,” said Hockstad. “That company has already brought in, I think, almost $700,000 in SBIRs.”
But TLA is not the only player nurturing the next generation of entrepreneurs coming out of the university. UA’s FORGE (Finding Opportunities and Resources to Grow Entrepreneurs) program, headed up by founding executive director Brian Ellerman, is also doing its part to reshape Tucson’s economic and entrepreneurial landscape.
“We support the next generation of entrepreneurs by providing a bridge across these three Cs: campus, community and capital,” says Brian Ellerman, director of UA’s FORGE program.
(FORGE/Submitted)
“We support the next generation of entrepreneurs by providing a bridge across these three Cs: campus, community and capital,” Ellerman said. “So we have three departments. One is Student Venture Pathways, where our programs inspire entrepreneurial thinking in all students. Then there’s Forge Community Alliances, which supports designated partners through things like offering them space in our buildings, hosting events — we like to say that we’re the entrepreneur support organization’s support organization. And lastly there’s the Venture Advisors component, where we accelerate startup growth and profitability.”
There, FORGE runs a couple different accelerators — the Residency Program, where graduates work on a custom development plan with experienced entrepreneurs and investors and meet regularly with peers and a team of expert mentors, and the Crucible, an intensive eight-week program helping new venture founders self-identify the gaps and barriers within their teams and give them the tools to move quickly to investment readiness.
Better Than Provisions, a company that creates low-carb, nutrient-rich nut grain-free granola, and Suncliffe Gin, which produces a Southwest-style premium terroir-focused gin, are two Tucson companies that recently emerged from the Crucible program. From the Residency Program, Arizona Luminaria, a nonprofit newsroom dedicated to local news and community-centered journalism, and Inch by Inch Worm Castings, a vermi-composting based regenerative ag company dedicated to improving outcomes for Tucson’s commercial agriculture market, are examples of recent successes. “The list goes on,” Ellerman said.
Of course, the schools aren’t just churning out batches of next-gen entrepreneurs to flood the city with yet more promising startups. New schools like UArizona’s College of Health Sciences, under the leadership of interim dean Kevin Lohenry, are being formed to alleviate existing workforce shortfalls — in this case, by offering new degree programs aimed at expanding the workforce to meet Arizona’s urgent shortage of trained health care professionals.
“I see this myself when I make a health care appointment and have to wait months to schedule a procedure,” said Lohenry. “This college was created to solve critical health care needs.”
The College of Health Sciences officially began operations just last summer, starting with five initial programs – midwifery, physician assistant, doctor of physical therapy, genetic counseling and clinical translational sciences.
Lohenry says each program sprang from a need to fill a specific workforce shortage, from the lack of genetic counselors in Arizona to the need to address growing maternal health challenges through a midwifery program and rural and indigenous health issues through expanded PA and PT programs.
“Each of the programs is aimed at building a workforce that reflects the diversity of our state and the communities they are serving,” Lohenry said.
Besides job creation and research initiatives, UA also contributes significantly to the city’s economy by attracting international students. Under the leadership of Jenny Lee, vice president for Arizona International and Dean of International Education, UA’s International Affairs arm plays a crucial role in enriching both the academic environment and the economic landscape of the region.
“So at the University of Arizona, we have about 3,700 international students,” Lee said. “And these students combined, just looking at their immediate local impact, bring in roughly around $70 million to the university to help support university operations and instruction and all those things.
“Of course, as we all know, they also contribute to the local economy,” added Lee. “Obviously there’s rent and services, food and transportation expenses and all those things that these 3,700 students provide per year. But they also bring diversity and global perspectives to the workforce, which is very necessary in today’s interconnected world.”