Colleges helping out with 2010 census
It's time for college students to stand up and be counted, and the census offices are making sure they do just that.
For the 2010 census, each university's residence life office was consulted about the best way to ensure that as many residential students are counted as possible.
"They've already done training for all the residence life staff. We are starting next week at one of the colleges. They're going to do one a week and get them done before the end of April," said John F. Tenbusch, St. Lawrence County planner. "We hope that we're going to get a very good response."
SUNY Canton will start counting students who live on campus Monday at mandatory meetings in each house. The college has 3,300 students, but only about 1,000 live on campus. Fewer than 350 students take classes online, meaning they can live anywhere in the world and may have no effect at all on the census. For those in the four residence halls, the college is providing snacks to entice the students to go to the meeting, according to Courtney B. Bish, director of residence life. For those who blow it off, there will be more forms available Tuesday night at the college's housing lottery.
"We know they want to go to that. We figure the students we're unable to get Monday we'll get Tuesday," Mrs. Bish said. "We're also prepared to continue into next week. We'll knock on doors and track them down in the dining halls."
There are approximately 12,000 college students in St. Lawrence County. In 2000, 3,000 to 9,000 of those students were not counted, according to Terry P. Baker, Watertown census office manager.
At St. Lawrence University, Canton, fewer than half of the students were counted. The university's population should be the easiest to account for because most students live on campus, Mr. Tenbusch said.
According to the Brookings Institute, each New Yorker represents about $2,200 in federal aid per year.
Exactly why so many students were missed is uncertain, as none of the college or 2010 census officials was involved last time. However, there are hopes that the simpler forms this year will make it easier for students to respond and bolster the rate of return, according to Kurt W. Stimeling, dean of students at Clarkson University, Potsdam.
"I'm somewhat loath to look back and say that last time they were idiots," Mr. Tenbusch said. "It seems like they had the one-size-fits-all approach. You and I can't go around college campuses knocking on doors of residence halls; we'll get arrested. You can't just go up to a college student and start asking, 'What's your name?' It's illegal. Colleges have all kinds of privacy concerns. They need them."
Counting college students who live on campus will be done by the end of the month. The more difficult part of the census is counting the students who live off campus, of whom there are more than 4,000 among the four universities.
"For the off-campus students, we certainly worked to create an awareness that the census is happening and they will be getting forms in the mail like everyone else," said Eric D. Duchscherer, director of residence life at SUNY Potsdam.
All of the universities were given things like plastic cups from the U.S. Census to hand out. SUNY Potsdam has been sending e-mails and putting messages in the student newspaper and on the campus radio station, Mr. Duchscherer said.
"We are going for 100 percent count of all the students who live on campus," Mr. Tenbusch said. "You're never going to get 100 percent, but we aspire to 80 or 90 percent, especially because we're working with residence life staff."
