Students should fill out their census forms correctly
Guest column by By Jeff Gray City Planner and Chair for the Mount Pleasant Complete Count Committee
In less than two months, all residents, including CMU students, will be asked to complete a 2010 census form that is delivered to their residence in Mount Pleasant.
A column recently published in Central Michigan Life asked why students should bother to do so in a city they reside in temporarily.
To answer this question, one must first examine the column’s suggestion that students can choose where they are counted in the census. In actuality, the U.S. Census policy states that “students living away from home while attending college are to be counted where they are living at college.”
The 2010 census form will also instruct parents of students: “Do not count anyone living away either at college or in the Armed Forces. Leave these people off your form, even if they will return to live here after they leave college.” More importantly, students should take the initiative to fill out their Mount Pleasant census forms for the sake of benefiting their university and community in both the near and distant future.
Today’s CMU students are directly benefiting from the efforts made by their fellow students during the 2000 census. These benefits include the expansion of Mount Pleasant’s park system to include the interconnected trails, skate park and soccer fields; the increase in downtown stores and other businesses, and much more.
More recently, the student population has played an integral role in the development of the Downtown to Campus Connection project, which strives to transform Main Street into a compelling, walkable and bicycle-friendly connection between downtown and Central Michigan University’s campus. With the help of university officials, students and numerous other stakeholders, this project was designed with students’ safety and desires in mind.
Not only were the aforementioned improvements to our community impacted by the data collected by the census, but services that students utilize on a daily basis are also affected. These include public transportation, educational grants, road rehabilitation, and police and fire protection.
The average CMU student’s length of stay in Mount Pleasant may be four to six years. However, their college degree will forever connect them to their alma mater and this community. Because of this ever-lasting connection, CMU students should always wish for the success of their school.
By taking 10 minutes to complete the upcoming census, students can have an impact on university tuition grant and loan programs, provide necessary data for ground-breaking research done by students and faculty, and ensure the presence of affordable student housing.
For these reasons and more, we urge students to perform their civic duty and participate in the 2010 census. Students who live off campus will receive a form in the mail in March.
These students must, by law, fill the form out and be counted at that local address. Students residing on campus will be counted as living in Mount Pleasant by a “group quarters” process in April. Students who wish to learn more can do so by visiting mt-pleasant.org/2010census or the U.S. Census Bureau’s Web site at 2010.census.gov.
