Students at the district’s four colleges will see annual earnings that are, on average, $10,200 higher than a person with just a high school diploma or equivalent working in California. Over the course of a working lifetime, those additional earnings will reach an undiscounted value of $367,000 per graduate, according to the report released by Lightcast, a research firm that has conducted more than 3,000 economic impact studies for educational institutions since 2000.
Taxpayers are seeing strong returns as well: the $539.1 million in public funding for 2024‑25 will generate $995.2 million in benefits, including $867.6 million in added tax revenue and $127.6 million in savings on public services.
In total, the district is responsible for supporting 49,031 jobs, or one in every 48 in the region. The $5.3 billion economic impact represents nearly 2% of the gross regional product.
“A $5.3 billion impact is not just a number, it represents lives transformed, communities uplifted, and a stronger future for all of San Diego,” said SDCCD Chancellor Gregory Smith. “Investing in the San Diego Community College District is one of the smartest decisions our region can make for shared prosperity.”
The SDCCD, which has a $2.1 billion annual budget and serves 90,000 students each year, employs more than 5,000 full- and part-time faculty and professional staff, 95% of whom live in San Diego County.
Alberto “Beto” Vasquez also personifies SDCCD’s impact. Formerly incarcerated and a first-generation college student, he turned his life around after prison, earning two associate degrees from City College, bachelor’s and master’s degrees in biology from UC San Diego, and a doctorate in education from San Diego State University. He now works full-time as director of STEM Outreach and Community Engagement at UC San Diego’s CREATE program, which engages public school students in low-income communities with science, technology, engineering, and mathematics to build a new, all-inclusive generation of STEM scholars.
“I’ve graduated a few times and the most special graduation, the one I am most proud of, is when I walked across that stage at City College,” he said. “It made me realize what my potential was and what I was capable of doing.”
Higher earnings and productivity among alumni contribute $4.4 billion in additional income to the region, according to the study.
The Lightcast study is based on several sources, including the 2024-25 academic and financial reports from the SDCCD, industry and employment figures from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and U.S. Census Bureau, analysis through Lightcast’s Multi-Regional Social Accounting Matrix model, and a variety of studies and surveys relating education to social behavior.