Census Bureau seeks student data

Tucked between the University postcards, U-Store promotions and credit card offers that normally fill their campus mailboxes, students will find a letter this March from the government: the 2010 census form.

Undergraduate and graduate students will receive forms around March 29, University spokeswoman Emily Aronson said, and will be expected to return completed forms to secure drop boxes located around campus roughly 10 days later.

The census form, which is 10 questions long, asks participants for their “usual residence.” For almost all students, the answer will be Princeton University, rather than their home address, since this definition is based on where respondents live for the majority of the year.

Laura Waldon, a partnership specialist for the U.S. Census Bureau, said that 2010 is the first year that the Census Bureau has dedicated a special initiative to reaching out to college students.

“Traditionally, college students have been the hardest to count, because they are mobile, and March coincides with spring break, graduation preparation and exams,” Waldon said. She added that efforts to publicize the census have included factsheets, websites, fliers and public service videos targeted at college students.

Waldon stressed the importance of student participation in the upcoming census.

“Census is more than just counting people,” she said. “It directly affects community decisions for the rest of the decade.”

The federal government uses census data when it decides how to allocate $400 billion in funding to public transportation, hospitals, schools and other community services, she said.

“If students are underrepresented, they won’t receive fair treatment,” Waldon said.

Beyond allocating funding to state and local governments, the government uses census data to determine the number of congressional seats apportioned to each state.

Though the University is not an official partner of the Census Bureau’s Census on Campus Initiatve, it has already undertaken efforts to encourage student participation.

Bobray Bordelon, the University’s representative to the New Jersey State Data Center, said that the University has begun to distribute posters raising awareness about the census. Though there are no data regarding the University’s response rate to the 2000 census, the 08544 zip code saw a 70 percent mailbox response rate, Bordelon said.

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At the University, representatives from the Housing Department, the Office of the Dean of Undergraduate Students, the Office of the Provost, the Office of Community and Regional Affairs and other administrative offices have been working with local representatives from the Census Bureau to coordinate the distribution and collection of census forms on campus, Aronson said.

But, she added, “it is ultimately the civic responsibility of students to provide the Census Bureau with the information requested.”