Thursday is Census Day, the official day on which Americans filling out their 2010 census forms should base their residential and familial information, according to Ben Marcus, Chairman of the D.C. Metro University Student Alliance.
If AU students list their D.C. address as their place of residence on the form, the AU Student Government may be able to obtain a sought-after student discount on the Metro transit system, according to Student Government President Andy MacCracken. He works with Marcus on the Student Alliance, an organization of student leaders from 13 colleges and universities around the D.C. metropolitan area, on which he sits as vice president.
The Metro discount is one of several initiatives that could be enabled through student participation in the census. It will be possible because the D.C. municipal government receives funds from the federal government based on the census count, according to Marcus. D.C. will get $3,700 per District resident counted every year for ten years, he said.
The Student Alliance has been working with city council members for the past couple of months to promote the interests of college students, and the 2010 census is the opportunity for college students to show the importance that the city council should place in their interests, according to MacCracken.
“I think not a lot of people realize how much of a college town we actually are ... If we can prove that the students are worth it for the city to really invest in and spend their time on, which we’re absolutely worth that, I think we’ll see some benefits start to come through,” MacCracken said. “The reality is [the D.C. government] needs us right now for the census and we need them for a number of things to improve student life in D.C.”
Students comprise almost one-sixth of the population of D.C., according to a release by the Student Alliance. Assuming that every one of the approximately 100,000 students in the District fill out the census listing D.C. as their place of residence, Marcus estimated that D.C. will receive $370 million of federal funding every year for the next 10 years for its student population.
One problem with students’ census participation is the confusion over how college dorms will actually be counted, according to Marcus. There has been miscommunication on that issue and colleges are all doing it differently, he said.
Students living off campus should have already received their census form in the mail, MacCracken said.
Students living on campus should also expect to receive census forms in their mailboxes within the next week or two, according to Nick Sabato, assistant to the executive director in AU’s Housing and Dining Programs who is helping to facilitate the census process at AU.
The very mobile student population has been difficult to include in the census because students often think they count in their parents’ form, according to the U.S. Census Bureau Web site. However, students actually should fill out the form to indicate where they live nine months out of the year, according to the site. For many students, that location is at school.
Obtaining the discount for students to use the Metro transit system is high on both MacCracken’s and Marcus’s lists of priorities. MacCracken has started to discuss it with D.C. councilmember for Ward 3 — where AU is located — Mary Cheh and Marcus has begun to try to contact the offices of councilmen-at-large Michael Brown and Phil Mendelson.
MacCracken and Marcus are also working to facilitate students’ right to affordable off-campus housing and to empower students to obtain local representation in their Advisory Neighborhood Commissions.
“Over the course of April, you’ll see a lot of ramped-up efforts to do some [census] education,” Marcus said. “The more the students are engaged, the more likely it is that the city will want to pay attention to students and want to treat the students as a priority for them.”
You can reach this staff writer at mfowler@theeagleonline.com.
