The University of Colorado and its campuses had an economic impact of $11.6 billion in the 2023-2024 fiscal year and a $19.3 billion impact including affiliate hospitals.

A study from CU Boulder’s Leeds School of Business analyzed the university’s economic impact last fiscal year. The results were presented during a CU Board of Regents finance committee meeting on Wednesday.

“This is a record high since we’ve been doing this and I would assume a record high for all time,” said Richard Wobbekind, faculty director of the Business Research Division at CU Boulder.

CU Boulder generated $4.6 billion in economic impact out of the $11.6 billion total. CU Anschutz generated $5.3 billion, CU Denver generated $771 million, UCCS generated $660 million and the CU system office in Denver generated $246 million.

The $19.3 billion impact total comes after adding the $7.7 billion in economic impact from hospitals affiliated with CU Anschutz, including the University of Colorado Hospital and Children’s Hospital Colorado.

CU remains a top five employer statewide and employed 51,185 people, including faculty, staff and students, at some point in the fiscal year.

Salary, wages and benefits totaled $4.1 billion, representing 72% of the university’s total spending.

The economic forecast includes education and operations of the university, research operations, construction, clinical care and direct student and visitor spending. It does not include the impact of alumni and retirees. It also does not include the impact of visitors to football games, concerts and conferences.

Regent Nolbert Chavez asked whether a study could be done to analyze the economic impact of football, citing the number of questions he gets about it.

Brian Lewandowski, executive director of the Business Research Division at CU Boulder, said his team is doing a separate deep dive study with athletics.

Of the $11.6 billion, most of the impact, $7.1 billion, is concentrated in the Denver metro area. The Boulder area saw $3.5 billion, Colorado Springs saw $0.6 billion and other areas in Colorado saw $0.4 billion.

In the 2022-2023 fiscal year, CU generated $10.8 billion in economic impact, and the inclusion of hospitals made it a $17.2 billion impact.

The year before, the CU-only impact was $8.7 billion and with the hospitals was $13.3 billion.