LANSING, Mich. (October 4, 2011) — At the forefront of Michigan’s economic resurgence is the University Research Corridor, an alliance of Michigan’s three largest research institutions – Michigan State University, the University of Michigan and Wayne State University.

According to the 2011 Empowering Michigan Economic Impact Report released today, Michigan’s University Research Corridor continues to grow in areas critical to the state’s resurgence: student enrollments, degrees granted in the high-tech and high-demand sectors, number of alumni living in the state contributing to the state’s economy through wages and taxes, research and development expenditures, and start-up companies. The study was conducted by Anderson Economic Group building upon data collected over the past four years.

The report showed that the URC invested more than $1.8 billion in research, had an economic impact of more than $15.2 billion on the state, and educates 137,583 students. The universities have more than a million alumni with more than 573,000 living in Michigan.

“The growth in research and development expenditures of almost 30 percent over the past five years is an indicator of how truly world class these research universities are and what a tremendous asset they are to the state of Michigan” said Jeff Mason, executive director the Michigan’s University Research Corridor.

“This report shows that the URC universities contributed over $15 billion in net economic impact to the state’s economy last year. This is over 17 times greater than the state’s funding for URC universities,” said Patrick Anderson, founder and principal of Anderson Economic Group. “Additionally, the state of Michigan receives $426 million in tax revenue from URC employees and alumni that it would otherwise not have received if the URC universities were not located in Michigan.”