Engaging College Students in Census 2020

By Purvi Patel, Julie Wu, Raima Roy, and Amber Nguyen

The census is a vital data collecting tool that enables us to have data on communities to better serve them and provide them with the resources they need. It also gives minority groups a voice by allowing their members to be visible. College students, organizations, and staff can all play a part in ensuring that college students are counted in the 2020 Census.

College Students and the 2020 Census

So how does the census account for the college student population?

Students living on campus are counted through a process called group quarters, which means campuses will have housing administrators who assist with developing a list of addresses and expected population counts as of April 1, 2020. Census Bureau employees will reach out to these housing administrators to schedule a visit and collect their information.

COLLEGE ENUMERATION UPDATE IN REGARD TO COVID-19:

Due to the COVID-19 crisis, most college students have returned home to their parents’ residence. Here is guidance on how college students are counted during the pandemic:

For students living off-campus: Students should still fill out their census form and count themselves at their off-campus college residence (apartment, group house, etc.) They should make sure to count all their housemates/roommates only once. If they are not having their mail forwarded to their current address, such as their parents’ home, they should fill out a non-ID response. Parents SHOULD NOT be including them on their census form when they return home.

For students living in dorms/student housing: Students will be counted by their college/university. The Census Bureau will work with college administrators to collect this information electronically. Parents SHOULD NOT be including them on their census form when they return home.

For students returning home from study abroad before April 1: Students should be counted wherever they are returning home, most often to their parents’ home. Parents SHOULD include them on their census form.

What Does a Student-Centered Plan to Get Out the Count (GOTC) Look Like Without a Pandemic?

The University of Chicago is an example of how to ensure college students and their local communities are counted in the 2020 Census

Purvi Patel, Director of Civic and Campus Engagement at the UChicago Institute of Politics, a nonpartisan, extracurricular organization, explained how the university informs, educates, and activates college student leaders under normal circumstances. To help students understand where they fit in the 2020 census and logistics like how to fill out the form, UChicago works with institutional partners like student affairs/residence life, university community engagement, and cultural and identity centers.

Here are key tactics that every college student, organization, and staff member can adopt when promoting the 2020 Census:

• Ensure that the census is embedded within our broader democratic engagement communication. People involved with voting efforts should be active in the census space, too!
• Understand the local landscape for census engagement with nonprofits, foundations, and government stakeholders. This is to make sure census efforts are not duplicated but enhanced and strengthened.
• Rely on community assets, such as programming across campus, structural technology interventions, and training students to work as ambassadors for their peers. One example of technological interventions is including a question at the end of class registration about whether a student wants to receive more information about census efforts on campus since registration is one system that all students have to encounter.

APIAVote Youth Ambassador Program

How can students be utilized as a community asset?

Julie Wu, Program Associate at Asian and Pacific Islander American Vote (APIAVote), presented a great example of a community asset that organizers can utilize: college student ambassadors!

APIAVote’s Youth Ambassador Program believes students should be educated and engaged as trusted messengers. For example, ambassadors can distill the important message that census conversations should be framed as part of civic engagement, rather than a passive activity that comes every 10 years.

If you or someone you know would be interested in becoming a student ambassador with APIAVote, apply at apia.vote/ambassador.

Join the Count in 2020

Like most communities, college students are diverse and come from varying socioeconomic and racial backgrounds. Many students and their families may depend on government assistance, like Medicaid, the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP), and more. If these students are unaware of the importance of the census, they and their loved ones risk losing these services. Thus, it is imperative that college students are educated about why it is important for them to be counted accurately in the 2020 Census.

The webinar on this topic is available here.

Purvi Patel is the director of campus and civic engagement at UChicago, Julie Wu is the programs associate at APIAVote, and Raima Roy and Amber Nguyen are with Asian Americans Advancing Justice | AAJC as the census and civic engagement program associate and as the Spring intern, respectively.