As I mentioned earlier, the fact that universities are located in a place encourages students to enrol there and enables people in the labour force to go back to university to develop their talent if they so wish.
I also mentioned the population of students whose parents never went to university. The presence of those institutions is important for that population. Furthermore, when someone trains in a particular geographic region, that enhances the retention of that talent and of highly skilled personnel.
Here are some figures on this.
Approximately 100,000 students are enrolled at one university that's part of the Université du Québec system. According to an internal study, nearly 30% of students say they would never have gone to university if there hadn't been one nearby.
Furthermore, follow-up data on graduates show that students who have studied in their region generally pursue careers there. I'm thinking, for example, of nursing talent. The universities of Trois-Rivières, Rimouski and d'Abitibi-Témiscamingue offer nursing programs. Between 80% and 95% of professionals trained by those universities remain and work in those regions.
Talent is trained because a university is there, together with all its attributes: its educational mission, its research mission and its community service mission.