Issue link: http://georgiancollege.uberflip.com/i/985337
SOCIAL PERSPECTIVE Georgian aims to improve the socioeconomic well-being of the local and provincial community by increasing students' earning potential and by positively influencing the health and lifestyle habits of students. As a result, society as a whole in Ontario benefits from the presence of Georgian in two major ways. The first and largest benefit to society is the added income created in the province. As discussed in the previous section, students earn more because of the skills they acquire while attending Georgian. Businesses also earn more because the enhanced skills of students make them more productive. Together, higher student wages and increased business output stimulate increases in income across the province, thereby raising prosperity in Ontario and expanding the economic base for society as a whole. Benefits to society also consist of the savings generated by the improved lifestyles of former students. Education is statistically correlated with a variety of lifestyle changes that generate social savings across three main categories: 1) health, 2) crime, and 3) income assistance. Health savings include avoided medical costs associated with smoking, alcoholism, obesity, and mental illness. Crime savings include reduced criminal justice system expenditures, lower victim costs, and increased productivity of individuals who are working rather than spending time in custody. Income assistance savings include the reduced demand for employment insurance benefits and employment-related social assistance. Figure 3 shows the present value of the added income and social savings that will occur in Ontario over the working lifetimes of Georgian's FY 2016-17 students. Added income amounts to a present value of $7.3 billion due to the increased lifetime incomes of students and associated increases in business output. Social savings amount to $48.8 million, the sum of health, crime, and income assistance savings in Ontario. Altogether, total benefits to society equal $7.4 billion (in present value terms). Society invested $379 million in educations from Georgian during the analysis year. This includes all expenditures by Georgian, all student expenditures, and all student opportunity costs. For every $1 of this investment, society as a whole in Ontario will receive a cumulative value of $19.40 in benefits, equal to the $7.4 billion in benefits divided by the $379 million in costs. These benefits will occur for as long as Georgian's FY 2016-17 students remain employed in the provincial workforce. TAXPAYER PERSPECTIVE From the taxpayer perspective, benefits consist primarily of the taxes that provincial government will collect from the added income created in the province. As Georgian's FY 2016-17 students earn more, they will make higher tax payments. Employers will also make higher tax payments as they increase their output and purchase more supplies and services. By the end of the students' working careers, provincial government will have collected a present value of $1.2 billion in added taxes. $7.8 billion Higher earnings $50 million Social savings FIGURE 3: Present value of higher earnings and social savings in Ontario G E O R G I A N C O L L E G E | E X E C U T I V E S U M M A R Y 6