The Economic Impact of USC Columbia

The flagship campus of the University, USC Columbia enrolls 25,000 students and offers more than 300 degree programs. It awards baccalaureate, master's, doctoral, and professional degrees and graduates 5,700 students a year. USC's faculty conducts more than $160 million in sponsored programs and research annually.

Numerous USC Columbia programs and activities support and add to the overall quality of life in the Midlands of South Carolina, including:

• Innovista, USC's research initiative that will include five buildings housing scientists from the University and the private sector. The $142 million first phase of the project is expected to generate more than 1,900 jobs with an annual payroll of $129 million.

• School of Law community programs such as VITA, which provides volunteer income tax assistance to low-income, elderly, and non-English-speaking people; Project Ayuda, in which student volunteers respond to requests from the Hispanic community about issues involving S.C. law; and Juvenile Arbitration Program, in which trained USC law student volunteers arbitrate non-serious juvenile offender cases.

• the School of Medicine, which, through partnerships with other institutions and agencies, provides numerous clinical services such as the Alzheimer's Day Care Center and the Child Abuse Recovery Center.

• the Center for Public Health Preparedness in the Arnold School of Public Health conducts important training exercises throughout the state with law enforcement and other first-responder agencies to better prepare for natural disasters and potential terrorist-inspired emergencies.

• USC's Poison Control Center, which provides emergency life-saving information on the prevention of and emergency advice for poisonings.

USC Columbia provides business leaders and entrepreneurs with expertise, professional development, and additional knowledge resources, and makes possible such valuable initiatives as:

• USC businessLink, which serves as a one-stop shop for businesses and industries that want to tap into the expertise of USC's Small Business Development Center, the Center for Manufacturing and Technology, the Technology Incubator, the Industrial Agreements Unit, and the Intellectual Property Office. Since 1997, these resources have supported business investments in South Carolina totaling more than $207 million.

• the Technology Incubator, begun in November 1998, which has moved into more spacious quarters at 1225 Laurel St. The incubator has successfully launched several start-up companies.

• the Division of Research (DOR), which coordinates the research programs and facilitates the research efforts of the faculty at the Moore School of Business. The DOR also conducts applied research on timely business and economic topics of interest to the state.

USC Columbia (including the School of Medicine)
Total Impact on the Midlands Region

Economic output
$1.4 billion

Income
$616.7 million

Employment impact
20,339 jobs