Dear Editor:

Imagine if the headline stated “UM Orono’s economic impact is $11 billion in Maine”! Maybe there would be a different attitude towards funding education. Maybe we would see that funding education is actually investing in education and reaping huge benefits. The headline for the UCLA impact report was just that. Without economic impact reports it means the hidden achievements are not known, leaving a belief that education funding is welfare, when it is investments.

In California economic impact reports are provided every fiscal year. Imagine investments in education contributing $11.06 billion in Maine. Imagine if UM Orono was the fourth largest employer in Penobscot County employing 72,700 full-time jobs. Imagine if research results in technology resulted in 24 startup businesses and over time had generated over 1,226 patents with 70 licensed to commercial enterprises.  

Imagine UCLA Chancellor Gene Block saying "Measuring this economic impact allows us to demonstrate how every dollar invested in UCLA pays substantial dividends back to people throughout our state,” and was being reported instead by President Joan Ferrini-Mundy at UM Orono.

California is known for many big-name employers, and is well-known for tech companies such as Apple, Google, eBay, and Intel, to name a few.  None of these are in the top 5.  #2 and #3, UCLA has 27,489 and UCLA Health System has 35,543 that includes four hospitals.  When I left California in 1982, there was only one hospital at UCLA and now there are four.  Imagine that.

On June 14, 2017 I shared new information about UCLA’s educational program called the influence of optimism. Clearly it has had great influence on results at UCLA. Helen Keller once said “Alone we can do so little, together we can do so much.” Another reports “We place a lot of effort on artificial intelligence, yet we forgo effort on billions of natural intelligence when we don’t even make the effort to educate.”  Imagination is more valuable than knowledge and optimism is essential. What are we waiting for?  Where are we on education’s economic impact in Maine?

Jarryl Larson

Edgecomb