Chicago’s Loop continues to be the "biggest college town" in Illinois—where student enrollment has increased 25 percent and higher education hiring and spending have increased significantly to boost the city’s economy during the past five years—according to a new DePaul University-researched study issued by the downtown advocacy organization Chicago Loop Alliance.

The 2009 Higher Education in the Loop and South Loop Study examined enrollment, employment and facility trends at 25 institutions of higher learning located in the area bordered by branches of the Chicago River to the north and west, Lake Shore Drive to the east and Roosevelt Road to the south. It updates a similar study commissioned by the organization and coordinated by DePaul in 2004.

Among the new findings:

• The number of college students in the Loop/South Loop grew to 65,524 from 52,230 over the past five years.
• The higher education institutions surveyed employ 15,087 people in the Loop/South Loop, a 24 percent increase over the 12,170 reported five years ago.
• The institutions averaged more than $403 million in wages and salaries per year from 2004 to 2009, compared to about $332 million in the 2004 study, a 21 percent increase.
• Fourteen institutions spent more than $420 million for renovation and construction during 2004-2009, a 164 percent rise since the last survey.
• Sixteen institutions reported spending more than $857 million on goods and services during the same period, a 148 percent increase since 2004.
• Twelve institutions alone occupied more than eight million square feet of Loop space during the 2008-2009 academic year, up 10 percent from five years ago.
• Fourteen institutions reported a combined audience of more than half a million people for programs and events sponsored during the academic year 2007-2008.

"This is encouraging news for Chicago," said Ty Tabing, executive director of the Chicago Loop Alliance, at a panel discussion the organization hosted to unveil the study findings June 10. "At a time when most economic sectors are shrinking, the education sector continues to grow."

Fran Casey, DePaul’s director of Community Affairs, who coordinated the DePaul research team that gathered data for the study, said: "Although we anticipated growth among the Loop higher education institutions, we were amazed at the extent of that growth. The fact that 13,000 more students are living and studying in the Loop, plus the huge jump in the amount of money spent by the Loop higher education sector on renovation, construction, goods and services since 2004, indicates the powerful contributions these institutions make to the city’s economy, workforce quality and vitality. And the countercyclical nature of higher education growth provides a ray of hope for the future in this difficult economic period.

"We look forward to phase III of the study, which will determine the wider economic impact of these institutions," she added. "I think the results will once again be stunning."

That next phase of the research is expected to be released in the fall and will include an in-depth examination of the trends by Geoffrey J.D. Hewings, professor of urban and regional planning, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

In addition to Casey, research project directors included Gerald W. McLaughlin, associate vice president, Office of Institutional Planning and Research, and Zac Baer, project coordinator, Office of Community, Government and International Affairs at DePaul.

Steven Kelly, associate professor of marketing and co-director of the Kellstadt Marketing Center; Sue Fogel, marketing chair; and Kathleen Stevenson, marketing coordinator of the center at DePaul conducted a survey of 2,200 Loop students about their spending habits and consumer preferences for the research project.