FSU Economic Impact on Tallahassee

By its own estimate, FSU generated $2.1 billion of direct revenue or expense within Florida and, including indirect effects, $3.95 billion in total industry output and 36,034 jobs (FSU economic impact page).

Source for the table: FSU economic impact page, compiled by the FSU Center for Economic Forecasting and Analysis. The page is titled as a summary of FSU's impact on Tallahassee and Leon County for 2024/2025 and was last updated in June 2026, while the direct figure is stated as within Florida and the output, jobs and income figures are footnoted to the FL SUS Economic Contributions Report 2025 (FSU economic impact page). It does not say whether the $3.95 billion and 36,034 jobs are a Leon County or a Florida total. Every figure in this table is FSU's estimate of its own effect, not a government count, and readers comparing it with the federal job figures below should keep the two apart.

The federal count puts 11,439 Leon County jobs in state government educational services in 2025, at an average annual pay of $78,165 and total wages of $894,125,015 (BLS QCEW, Leon County, 2025 annual averages).

Source for the table: BLS QCEW, Leon County, 2025 annual averages. The Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages counts jobs by owner and industry and does not name employers, so the file does not say which state institutions in Leon County make up the three state educational services establishments (BLS QCEW, Leon County, 2025 annual averages). What it does show is scale: state educational services holds 11,439 of the 36,250 state government jobs in Leon County, and its average pay is above both the state government and the countywide averages (BLS QCEW, Leon County, 2025 annual averages).

The monthly metro series does not name universities either: government jobs in the Tallahassee metropolitan area were 64.4 thousand in March 2026, 60.3 thousand in May and 59.5 thousand in July, then a preliminary 60.5 thousand in August (BLS Economy at a Glance, Tallahassee MSA). Education and health services held 27.6 thousand jobs in August 2026, also preliminary (BLS Economy at a Glance, Tallahassee MSA).

Published counts range from more than 7,600 full time faculty and staff to 16,207 total employees, depending on which page and which count is used (State University System Board of Governors, FSU profile; FSU About page).

The FSU economic impact page says the university employed 16,069 people in 2024: 7,414 regular salaried full time employees, 103 regular salaried part time employees and 8,552 employed under OPS classification (FSU economic impact page). The FSU About page lists 16,207 total employees (FSU About page), and the State University System Board of Governors profile describes more than 7,600 full time faculty and staff (State University System Board of Governors, FSU profile). The three numbers come from different dates and definitions; each is reported as published.

FSU also publishes its payroll. Its impact page puts total payroll for fiscal year 2024, including gross salaries and employer paid benefits and taxes, at $1,098,595,953, with an average biweekly payroll of $42,267,691 (FSU economic impact page). That payroll is FSU's own figure; the federal file above counts wages for all state educational services establishments in Leon County together (BLS QCEW, Leon County, 2025 annual averages).

The FSU Board of Trustees approved a $3 billion operating budget for 2024-2025, a 14.3 percent increase and the largest in the institution's history (FSU News, June 20, 2024).

The impact page puts the 2023-2024 operating budget at about $2.1 billion and lists $519 million dedicated to capital projects in fiscal year 2024-2025, including $3,676,227 in state Public Education Capital Outlay appropriations for developmental research (FSU economic impact page). FSU describes its Tallahassee area campuses as over 400 buildings on over 1,600 acres, while its About page gives 397 buildings on 1,850.2 acres and a 487.6 acre main campus in Tallahassee (FSU economic impact page; FSU About page).

Research figures differ by measure. The impact page reports external research expenditures of $290.1 million for fiscal year 2024 and says FSU researchers received $271 million in funding for fiscal year 2025, $145 million less than 2024 (FSU economic impact page). The About page reports research expenditures at an all time high of $488 million for fiscal year 2025 (FSU About page). The pages do not reconcile the two, so both are stated here as FSU publishes them.

FSU puts student spending at $1.044 billion in fiscal year 2024 and estimates that its 44,308 students paid $53.96 million in Leon County sales taxes in 2024 (FSU economic impact page).

The same page estimates the 2024-2025 cost of attendance for a Florida resident living on campus or in an off campus apartment at $25,398, including tuition, housing, books and transportation, and $39,831 for a non-resident in the same situation (FSU economic impact page). Student counts vary by page: the impact page uses 44,308 for fall 2024, with 42,507 attending class on the Leon County campus, the About page gives 46,184, and the Board of Governors profile says 46,000 (FSU economic impact page; FSU About page; State University System Board of Governors, FSU profile).

For football, the impact page says a typical season of home games results in $106.5 million of economic impact on Leon County and that fall 2024 games drew 129,022 out of town visitors, citing a 2020 Downs and St. Germain study; the page's footnote for its $137.46 million direct spending figure, from a 2021 Downs and St. Germain study, notes that those numbers are pre-COVID-19 pandemic (FSU economic impact page). The page also lists an average of 53,479 attendees per 2024 home game alongside a season high of 51,107 for the Florida game, so the average it lists is higher than the season high it lists; FSU Athletics lists the stadium's 2024 capacity as 55,107 during renovation (FSU economic impact page; FSU Athletics, Doak Campbell Stadium page).

FSU says 46,417 of its living alumni lived and worked in Leon County as of April 2025, the highest concentration of FSU alumni anywhere in Florida (FSU economic impact page).

The impact page says some 257,000 of approximately 420,000 living FSU alumni lived and worked in Florida, and estimates that the 2,760 traditional faculty members paid $3,361,680 in Leon County sales taxes in 2024 and all 7,414 full time salaried employees $9,030,252 (FSU economic impact page). It also credits 4,220 students with 214,258 reported volunteer hours in 2024-2025 through the FSU ServScript Program (FSU economic impact page). These are FSU's estimates of its own community footprint in Tallahassee.

FSU's estimate is a university compiled figure whose geography the page does not state, so it cannot be read as a Leon County total or checked line by line against federal data (FSU economic impact page).

The impact page also quotes city, county and tourism figures, such as a City of Tallahassee budget and Leon County visitor spending; those are other agencies' numbers and are left out here, because a university page is a source only for the university's own facts. For Leon County's government run figures, the federal QCEW file remains the base: 36,250 state government jobs in 2025, out of 165,372 jobs countywide (BLS QCEW, Leon County, 2025 annual averages). The Tallahassee economy hub, the major employers guide and the state capital payroll guide put FSU next to state government, the hospitals and the schools.

Last verified: October 18, 2026, by re-reading FSU's June 2026 economic impact summary, its About fast facts and 2024 budget release, the Board of Governors FSU profile, the 2025 Leon County QCEW file, the August 2026 metro Economy at a Glance table and FSU Athletics' stadium capacity history.