The Love of Here | Life and Work in Northwest Georgia
Sep 14, 2026 · 51 min · 17 segments
What happens when a college president decides that higher education shouldn't just be about degrees — it should be about building a community from the ground up? Dr. John Fuchko, president of Dalton…
John FuchkoGuestErika MostellerHostLauren SnearyHostYeah, so that's another thing that I'd love to jump into is how higher education contributes to economic development.
So we've actually had a few guests recently who've been talking just about kind of the future of Dalton and where our community is headed and how we can be thoughtful about it.
And one thing that I appreciate, the perspective that I've heard you speak about multiple times, including recently at the Chambers event, is that, you know, Our college has an impact on where our community is going in multiple ways, economically, from a community development perspective, from a quality of life perspective.
So, I mean, there's the direct economic impact, which I'd be remiss if I didn't talk about for just a brief moment.
And that actually increased by $30 million to right around $167 million is the annual economic impact of the college.
There's a whole study that's done by the, I think it's the Selig Center at University of Georgia that totals like $25 billion, but it has to do with like tuition and fees and the jobs that it's creating and the spending and the re-spending and so on.
I think a part of that, too, is I think on average, each student, not including tuition and fees, spends somewhere in the neighborhood of $19,000 to $20,000 in the community.
Yeah, so that's another thing that I'd love to jump into is how higher education contributes to economic development.
So we've actually had a few guests recently who've been talking just about kind of the future of Dalton and where our community is headed and how we can be thoughtful about it.
And one thing that I appreciate, the perspective that I've heard you speak about multiple times, including recently at the Chambers event, is that, you know, Our college has an impact on where our community is going in multiple ways, economically, from a community development perspective, from a quality of life perspective.
So, I mean, there's the direct economic impact, which I'd be remiss if I didn't talk about for just a brief moment.
And that actually increased by $30 million to right around $167 million is the annual economic impact of the college.
There's a whole study that's done by the, I think it's the Selig Center at University of Georgia that totals like $25 billion, but it has to do with like tuition and fees and the jobs that it's creating and the spending and the re-spending and so on.
I think a part of that, too, is I think on average, each student, not including tuition and fees, spends somewhere in the neighborhood of $19,000 to $20,000 in the community.
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