The Economic Value of Main Report

Chapter 4:

Investment analysis

The benefits generated by MCC affect the lives of many people. The most obvious beneficiaries are the college ’s students; they give up time and money to go to the college in return for a lifetime of higher wages and improved quality of life. But the benefits do not stop there. As students earn more, communities and citizens throughout New York benefit from an enlarged economy and a reduced demand for social services. In the form of increased tax revenues and public sector savings, the benefits of education extend as far as the state and local government. Investment analysis is the process of evaluating total costs and measuring these against total benefits to determine whether a proposed venture will be profitable. If benefits outweigh costs, the investment is worthwhile. If costs outweigh benefits, the investment will lose money and could be considered infeasible. In this chapter, we evaluate MCC as an investment from the perspectives of students, taxpayers, and society.

The economic value of Monroe Community College

44