Universities create jobs at all levels of compensation from relatively modest positions and hourly workers to highly compensated faculty and professional staff. In addition, universities generate derived employment throughout the communities that serve faculty, staff, and especially the students. In this paper, we look only at the direct employment generated by the University of Florida and its affiliates in this immediate area and throughout the state. The definition of employee offers some challenges. Clearly the faculty and staff of the university belong in this analysis, but so too do hourly workers and temporary personnel.
Students pose an additional complication.
On one side, they are customers of the university, paying a fee to attend and learn. On the other side, they are similar to employees of the university because the state pays for about seventy-five percent of the cost of their education. They are also like employees because they come to the community and live here while attending the university, and while here, they buy and rent housing, purchase a substantial amount of goods and services, vote in elections, and in other ways act like other employees of the university. However, for the purposes of this analysis, we have decided to exclude students from the employee category unless they hold a compensated job with the university or one of its affiliates. This will understate the direct economic impact of the institution on its communities, but we will explore the student economy in a future issue of Measuring University Performance.