Students Slip By Census Counters

Due to varying spring breaks, multiple addresses and general evasiveness, students often go unnoticed by the Census -- so this year, many colleges are taking extra steps to make sure their students are counted before the May 14 deadline.

At Northwestern, clipboard-wielding census workers are greeting students. NYU's resident assistants have distributed the survey to students in their dorms, and will hold meetings to fill out the Census with them. The University of Pennsylvania has plastered the campus with posters. And Iowa City, home of the University of Iowa, is ahead of the game, with a reported 65 percent of the city's residents counted -- 5 percent above the national average

On Monday, Princeton University hosted U.S. Census Bureau Director Robert Groves to speak on the new approaches this year's survey is taking, including a sweeping effort to get residents in underreported areas to respond. The Daily Princetonian reports:

Armed with signs, bullhorns and the sirens of local fire trucks, 250 of the Census Bureau's local partner groups across the United States will begin the "March to the Mailbox" this Saturday. The march is an effort to urge residents of neighborhoods with low response rates to send in their forms.

To reach as large a population as possible, the Census Bureau provides guides in 59 languages. It also conducts a massive marketing campaign on television and online that targets specific ethnic groups with low populations in the United States, such as the Hmong, Groves explained.

What is your school doing for the 2010 Census? Have you responded?