As part of the census process every 10 years, colleges and universities are required to collect and provide certain pieces of information about their student population to the Census Bureau. 2020 is a census year.
For the census, college students living in on-campus housing are counted through their university as part of the bureau’s Group Quarters Operation. Due to the impact of COVID-19 on colleges and universities, the Census Bureau issued a statement on Monday highlighting several modifications to the policies and timelines it had in place for the census. The statement reads, in part, as follows:
- In general, students in colleges and universities temporarily closed due to the COVID-19 virus will still be counted as part of this process. Even if they are home on census day, April 1, they should be counted according to the residence criteria which states they should be counted where they live and sleep most of the time. We are asking schools to contact their students and remind them to respond.
- Per the Census Bureau’s residence criteria, in most cases students living away from home at school should be counted at school, even if they are temporarily elsewhere due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The full statement from the Census Bureau is available here.