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Today is Study Hawaii Day at the Legislature.
Study Hawaii does a great job marketing our schools, colleges and universities to foreign students. The state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism (DBEDT) has analyzed this segment of our economy and tells us the direct economic impact is more than $240 million per year. However, for every foreign student coming to Hawaii, there are two U.S. students from the mainland.
It is time for the state to understand how large our “student” business really is. It appears to be larger than agriculture, tech or the movies when we look at dollars coming into our state.
After tourism, construction and the military, the business of educating all out-of-state students is our next largest “export” business. Our elected officials should ask DBEDT to study the economic impact of all out-of-state students.
John Brizdle
Palolo
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