The U.S. Census Urges All College Students to be counted. Salem State College PRSSA Chapter is spreading the awareness.
The US Census Bureau is on a mission to raise awareness of the importance of this year’s Census to young people, particularly college students nationwide. The Census distributes $400 billion each year, if college students aren’t counted, funds are not distributed effectively.
Salem State College’s chapter of the Public Relations Students Society of America (PRSSA) have partnered with the US Census Bureau to launch a campaign to inform students of the Census forms to be filled out in March. The Census wants to count all college students, regardless if they are residents on campus, or live in an off-campus apartment. As of February, PRSSA will be distributing T-shirts during ‘Census Days’ to emphasize the importance of the 2010 Census. We will also launch a social media campaign to target SSC students using Facebook and Twitter, follow us at @SSCPRSSA.
The decennial Census is intended to count each person in the United States every 10 years. Every student in the country, citizens and noncitizens alike, must be counted. What does this mean to college students? Students are at risk of losing potential financial aid, including Pell Grant funding, and other benefits because of under-reported numbers. The bigger the census count, the clearer the need for aid will be communicated to the federal government.
According to the official Census website, “Census data are used to distribute Congressional seats to states, to make decisions about what community services to provide, and to distribute $400 billion in federal funds to local, state and tribal governments each year.”
Students are directly affected by the federal funding distributed annually and the policies determining where that money goes. For example, the total capital available for student loans such as Pell Grants is based upon the census. If students go uncounted through their failure to complete the 2010 census form, then less government funding is available for funding necessities. With the economy in recession, students can not afford to have less money available to them for student loans and other financial aid.
For more information, visit www.sscprssa.org , www.census.gov, or contact Yanique Shaw at YaniqueShaw@gmail.com