Graig MantleChristina Mills sits at a quiet table in the back room of Linnaea’s Caf‚ in downtown San Luis Obispo. She flips through the pages of her structures book and, in between taking notes, she takes a sip of the medium chai latte at her side.
The architecture junior easily spends at least $40 a month at coffee houses around town, in addition to the money she spends at grocery stores to keep up her constant supply of creamer, three flavors of coffee, and teas.
Like many Cal Poly students, she is just as dependent of the city of San Luis Obispo as it is on her.
After some decreases in the past couple of years, it looks as though Cal Poly’s spending in the community may be on the rise.
In a recently released economic report, it was estimated that Cal Poly’s economic impact shrank from $1.07 million to $1.03 million from the 2003-04 to the 2004-05 fiscal years.
The reasons for this cutback are two-fold: enrollment was down and the job market was soft (so the earnings of recent college graduates were down, also), though this second estimate could have just been a “statistical quirk.”
But due to an increase in capital expenditures (i.e. money spent on new buildings and new equipment) and a boost in enrollment numbers, Ken Riener, finance professor and department chair, and co-author of the report, estimated that spending, either from the university itself or students living in the area, has increased since September of 2005. And probably even more so since then.
“Student numbers are up significantly,” Riener said. “And that will play through student expenditures and university spending.”
Currently, approximately 18,500 students attend Cal Poly, compared to the 17,582 students enrolled at the time the report was written.
This is good news for San Luis Obispo businesses.
At the six-month-old California Pizza Kitchen, assistant general manager Jakco Vaskov estimated that about 90 percent of his front house staff was college-aged, with about half of this number coming from Cal Poly.
What made the company attracted the San Luis Obispo in the first place was mainly the fact that there is a university here, Vaskov said.
Across the plaza at Starbucks, things are a bit different. According to Geoff Martinez, assistant manager at the Higuera Street branch, college students aren’t a part of the “the normal coffee house rush” in the morning, but do use the coffee house for studying and hanging out later in the day.
Local businesses – “people who work in the area and are stopping to get coffee” – seem to be the core of their customers.
At Linnaea’s, the opposite effect reigns. There, students use the back room and quaint patio to study or just enjoy their coffee or tea with friends.
Juliette Muracchioli, a barista at Linnaea’s, estimated that about fifty percent of customers are young people, including many Cal Poly students, and that when school is not in session, there’s a noticeable difference.
Whatever the degree of student involvement, the implication remains: The San Luis Obispo city and county economies would be markedly different without Cal Poly’s presence.
“The pure numbers show that Cal Poly is about 10 percent of the overall economic impact in the county,” Riener said.
Riener projects that by 2011, the total economic impact Cal Poly will have on the community will be around $1.22 million.
The university also acts as a stabilizer, Riener said. Tourism, which has a seasonal (summer) impact on the community, is also a big factor on the economy. Cal Poly acts as a stabilizer in this way, providing revenue for the community during the school year when tourism is low.
One thing’s clear: During the academic year, students will continue to spend their hard-earned money (or parent’s money) on rent, living expenses, and extras (including the much-loved coffee shops that Mills frequents) to get them through the year, which will in turn help boost the economy.
“You want to talk about economic impact? A coffee shop open 24 hours would make so much money, especially during midterms and finals weeks,” Mills said.