It Pays To Go To School

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Investment in and demand of private construction is starting to decline as the costs start to increase.  But, New York’s construction industry has a new favorite customer: the education industry.  As commercial construction has steadily decreased over the past two years, construction in the educational sector has gradually increased as a percentage of the total construction activity.  Investment has gone up from $4 billion in 2008 to about $5 billion in 2010, but there is some uncertainty on how long these investments can continue because of the decreasing government budgets and dwindling private endowments. 

After the economic downturn, there were massive layoffs and the unemployment rate soared.  And, even when Wall Street started hiring again because many of the top firms fired too many employees, there was a lot of structural unemployment.  With no other options, a lot of people who were unemployed decided to return to school and students who were graduating decided to stay in longer.  Thus, one can make the assumption that the increased construction in the education sector can be attributed to the increased demand for higher education, and indirectly the stagnant economy.