That’s the question being asked by Sunday’s NY Times Business section (sub required). Seems like a variety of large developers (including three publicly traded REITS) are jumping into the college housing business. But the bigger question is how can college and universities become more seamlessly interconnected with their communities?
Big strides in this direction have been made at the University of Pennsylvania which, under former President Judy Rodin’s leadership, developed an ambitious plan to connect the school to its surrounding neighborhood. In Providence, Rhode Island, the Rhode Island School of Design has redeveloped old commerical and office buildings into design studios. Arizona State University is developing an urban campus, integrated into the existing community fabric, in downtown Phoenix.
By integrating colleges and universities in community redevelopement, communities gain the bustling street-life and neighborhood energy associated with 24-7 college schedules. Moreover, universities can and do play an important role in the economy.
Here is a recent report titled The University and the Creative Economy that I produced with my colleagues Gary Gates, Brian Knudsen, and Kevin Stolarick. It examines the role of the university through the lens of the ‘3-Ts’ of economic analysis and finds that, “the university comprises a potential — and, in some places, actual — creative hub that sits at the center of regional development. It is a catalyst for stimulating the spillover of technology, talent, and tolerance into the community.” No wonder real estate investors are showing up on the quad.
August 21st, 2006 at 10:01 pm
Based on a previous topic comparing baseball to economic development most cities don’t need to invest in universities but would be better off investing in community colleges that train their own residents for jobs in their own communities. According to that article most cities will loose the talent to a handful of larger cities where the “superstar scientists and engineers” live. The 3 T’s of Florida’s economic development do not apply to 99% of cities and are a waste of time.
August 21st, 2006 at 11:11 pm
It depends on what you mean by creativity. You become a superstar by being creative, not the other way around. Who would have ever thought that rainy Seattle would rule the software world, or that Herndon, Virginia, of all places, would make a run at it and at Carnegie Mellon?
It is encouraging that development of college housing is a hot topic, although this provides only a temporary fix for the young adult housing problem. If higher education were more strongly linked to a job – so that you get a position first after the first few years of school then transfer to whatever school where you pursue your graduate work, then providing housing is a longer term solution. Under the model for education and early work I am suggesting, Sallie the budding engineer would start at State Tech after she finished her basic core and division electives, PE, etc. – all but the stuff really related to her major. To pay for this education, she would first get hired by a company who is in partnership with State Tech, who would pay for her housing and board, provide her a cash stipend, issue her a few shares a month for retirement and pay her tuition for as much education as she is capable of completing. In exchange, she owes two years of work for every year of tuition payed (assuming her remaining undergrad work and grad work take two and a half more years to complete – so she would work five years after school). If she did not wish to stay with the firm, she would owe a student loan for the tuition bill only and would offset part of that with the stock granted to her. In the mean time, she keeps the room and dining priviledges for that five years. At the end of that time, she can stay with that company or find another who will, as part of the compensation package, provide her with a home and mortgage which will amortize at the same time as her retirement savings pays more than her salary. If the firm is 100% employee-owned the mortgage would be interest free. Salaries would be flatter in this system, but incentives would be higher for actual performance. If she is an innovator, she will likely retire at age 47 a very rich woman.
Larry the techie would go to community college or technical training with the same deal. His time in training would be less, so his payback requirement would be less. He would also start younger. If he has an untapped talent for innovation and invents that essential piece of hardware or software which makes his employer millions, he could retire at 41 a very rich man.
Par of attracting these two potentially creative young people is not only housing, but linking housing, education and a job.
August 22nd, 2006 at 2:28 am
The plans that Michael Bindner states in a previous post designed to attact and keep talent in a university centric city is good in theory. However, I believe the reality is that most companies are not going to be willing to make these steep commitments. In fact, in a recent issue of InformationWeek in an article in attracting the next generation of engineers the writer states that most MBAs that run the tech companies consider talent to be like a commodity to be bought when needed and not grown internally. Take a look at the massive offshoring of jobs in the engineering field to other countries. I believe I read somewhere that IBM has offshored its entire development operations to India. Furthermore, Seattle is a good example of a “superstar” driven city with Bill Gates and Microsoft located in Seattle. While Hearndon, Va is a good example of a “location” driven city that is located near Washington D.C. where many of the jobs are. The federal government always seems to grow no matter what and this is reflected in the growth of the surrounding bedroom communities. Again, most cities are left out of the “superstar” city category.
P.S. Bill Gates is not really a “superstar”. He is someone that got lucky in that his company got the contract to make the operating system for the IBM PC. Businesses were buying IBM PCs and compatibles because of the IBM brand name that was closely associated with big/powerful reliable mainframe computers. I am an engineer and most people that I knew that were computer literate felt that Windows was not exactly the best thing out there when compared to MAC and Amiga Operating Systems.
August 23rd, 2006 at 2:10 pm
I agree with Robert that most traditional companies won’t go the route that I described. It is the employee-owned firms which will change the market place. After they do, the others will match them in order to keep getting talent.
Employee-ownership is perhaps the one thing that can stand in the way of the wholesale offshoring of both the industrial and creative classes.