Economic Impact Report, FY2026

The headline numbers

This summary covers fiscal year 2026 (July 1, 2025 to June 30, 2026) and was released in September 2026. The Institute for Regional Economic Development prepared it. It is the third such study, after FY2018 and FY2022. The region is Porter County plus the five counties that border it, which this report calls the six-county Valley.

• Total economic impact: $468.2 million
• Jobs supported: 3,894, including 1,284 university faculty and staff
• State and local taxes generated: about $17.9 million
• $11.23 of regional impact for every $1 of state appropriation. The FY2026 appropriation was $41.7 million.
• Visitor-days: about 118,000, for games, concerts, camps, commencement and admissions visits

Where the money comes from

Figures are rounded. Jobs are counted by headcount, full- and part-time.

How it was calculated, in plain language

1. Count only money that lands in the region. A laptop bought from an out-of-state vendor mostly leaves the Valley, so it counts for very little. A roof replaced by a Lake City contractor counts in full.
2. Count only money that would not be here otherwise. Students from inside the six counties might have spent some of their money locally anyway. The institute subtracted an estimate of that spending, which reduced the student line by about $11 million.
3. Follow the money one round further. When a Porter employee buys groceries on Main Street, the grocer pays wages, and those wages get spent too. A standard regional input-output model estimates those follow-on rounds. On average, each direct dollar became about $1.51 of total activity.
4. Add what graduates earn because of their degrees. This counts only the earnings premium for Porter graduates who live and work in the region, and it is not multiplied again.

The institute’s economist, Dr. Martin Seefeldt, puts the caveat bluntly: “This is an impact study, not a cost–benefit study. It tells you how much activity moves through the region because the university is here. It does not tell you whether every dollar was well spent.”

Compared with FY2022

The FY2022 study estimated $401 million, which is about $446 million in FY2026 dollars. After inflation, total impact grew by roughly 5% in four years. Most of the growth came from capital work, including the Founders Hall high-bay renovation, and from visitor spending, which recovered fully after a weak 2021–22. Student spending was flat in real terms, as enrollment has been.

The institute also asked 214 Depot District and Cedar Bluff businesses how much of their revenue came from students, employees and university visitors. The median answer was 22%. For downtown restaurants it was 38%. During Millrace Week it was, in the words of one survey respondent, “all of it.”

Getting the full report

The 48-page full report has county-by-county tables and the model assumptions. Ask the institute for a copy. Local governments and development organizations can request a custom cut of the data at no cost; see Economic development and the Town–Gown Council, where the report was presented on September 16, 2026. For context on why a state university publishes this at all, see the Wesconsin Idea and Budget and financial planning.