Gainesville residents expressed mixed reactions to U.S. Census Bureau statistics that show poverty rates decreasing in many college towns where off-campus graduate and undergraduate college students are excluded.
According to data released in the spring, 24.6 percent of Alachua County, including students, is below poverty level. Excluding students from the data decreases the county’s poverty level to 16.1 percent.
UF microeconomics professor Mark Rush said that excluding students from poverty data, and basing it on permanent residents alone, presents the data more accurately.
“I understand the students’ perspective, but student poverty is a different kind of poverty,” he said. “It’s temporarily living in poverty for a couple of years and then later working and bringing in more income.”
However, Deniss Kaskurs, a 22-year-old UF political science and economics senior, said the new data is an “inaccurate reflection of the true poverty level of college town.”
Kaskurs said if the Census Bureau wants more accurate data on poverty, it should include students. He said this data will decrease the average income level.
Jeremiah Tattersall, an organizer for the Alachua County Wage Theft Task Force, said he was disturbed when he read the data. He said removing students from the data assumes they don’t contribute to the local economy.
Tattersall said the city’s workforce includes about 50,000 students, and of that number, about 4,000 graduate students who work full time.
“This is very misleading to exclude students from poverty,” he said. “It seems unfair.”
