National Census Day, April 1, has come and gone, and for students living on campus, a question might be lingering: Did I go uncounted?
According to a U.S. Census Bureau official, the answer is “no.” The count of on-campus students is yet to come.
ASU’s University Housing department received the questionnaires on Thursday and staff will be distributing census forms in the days to follow as part of a “group quarters count,” said Al Nieto, office manager of the Phoenix Central Local Census Office.
Nieto explained that a group quarters count is the count of residents not living in regular households, like prison inmates, nursing home residents and on-campus college students.
In the weeks leading up to National Census Day, officials were sent to these various locations, spoke with supervisors and established dates for when to distribute and collect the questionnaires, Nieto said.
“The [University Housing] staff will hand out the forms in the next few days and collect them back from residents by April 15,” said University Housing spokeswoman Eliza Robinson in an e-mail.
April 1 is merely a “point of reference” day for when residents should mail back their census questionnaires if they have not already done so, according to the 2010 Census Web site.
The central Phoenix census office, which sent census questionnaires to the Downtown and Tempe campus housing departments, mailed the regular census letters to households March 15, Nieto said.
It is possible that some letters have not reached their recipients yet, he said.
“People shouldn’t panic,” Nieto said. “If you don’t receive the letter by April 12, [you] should go ahead and give us a call.”
The central Phoenix census office will begin sending out census takers, also known as enumerators, on May 1 to find people who did not return a census questionnaire, including on-campus students.
According to a U.S. Census Bureau fact sheet, census officials can request administrative record data from the University about students who do not return their census questionnaires.
“[University Housing] will tell us how many people were there on April 1,” Nieto said.
But census takers will not be allowed into residence halls to physically find students, Robinson said.
“We will work with the census bureau to provide necessary data and ensure the best possible return from our residents,” she said in an e-mail.
Students living on campus should mark their dormitories as their places of residence only if that is where they live and sleep most of the time, according to the census bureau Web site.
If the person filling out the census questionnaire is unsure about which living space is his or her permanent residence, then he or she should consider their residence the place they were living on April 1, Nieto said.
Tempe spokeswoman Nikki Ripley said the city has been working hard to reach out to the student population about the census.
“Students are one of our primary audiences,” she said.
The city has been focusing on off-campus students in its campaign to encourage residents to fill out their questionnaires and have passed out information at ASU events, Ripley said.
A large population of students will contribute to the amount of state funds the city receives. Each person counted in Tempe means an additional $1,250 for city programs, according to a Tempe statement.
The city’s 2010 Complete Count Committee, a group appointed by Mayor Hugh Hallman, was charged with spreading the word to Tempe residents about the census.
“I am very comfortable that we were just about everywhere that we could be,” said committee co-chairman Don Cassano.
The committee worked hard to find the “undercounted” populations, like Spanish-speaking residents and Tempe’s Samoan community, he said.
“For some folks, there’s a great suspicion about the census,” he said, adding that some people, especially undocumented immigrants, do not trust government officials.
According to the bureau’s Web site, it is against the law for the bureau to share respondents’ answers with the IRS, FBI, CIA and other government agencies.
Nieto said the central Phoenix office is currently working to fill about 1,500 open positions for census takers.
The work is part-time, and the pay is $15 an hour. Students interested in working can visit 2010.census.gov/2010censusjobs.
Reach the reporter kjdaly@asu.edu
