Students mean more to Centre County and the State College Borough than they may think.

University students provide a stable population base for the county and the borough, according to population statistics.

While most of northeastern Pennsylvania continued to experience a significant rate of increase in population between 1990 and 1992, Centre County was one of 42 counties with a growth rate of only 2 percent or less.

Jon Eich, senior planner at the Centre County Planning Board, said migration is a major factor for Centre County because the Centre Region's population is affected by University employment and enrollment. He said this results in large numbers of people moving in and out of the region on a regular basis.

Although employment patterns have downsized because of a slower economy since 1990, Gordon F. De Jong, professor of sociology, said the region's driving engine is the University. The U.S. Census Bureau counts students by where they attend school, as opposed to where they are from.

Eich said, "Thirty-three thousand people of Centre County's total population of 124,812 were nonresident students (in 1990)."

According to De Jong, another reason for the stable growth rate of Centre County is the fact that State College is a growing area, while towns such as Philipsburg are not growing.

De Jong said small counties with big universities are very sensitive to enrollment changes.

"Luckily (for Centre County), enrollment has remained stable at Penn State," De Jong said.

Ron Uroda, demographic services coordinator at the Pennsylvania State Data Center at Penn State Harrisburg, said, "The population in Centre County went up about 1.4 percent, or about 1,800 people."

But the Centre County population appears to be following a trend, De Jong said. "Centre County has experienced an increase of about 1 percent a year in the last decade," he added.

But that 1 percent rate goes back much farther than the last decade. Centre County has been growing at that rate since World War I, Eich said.

Although Eich said he was not surprised by the percentage of growth, he found the data center's population estimates to be a little low. He said a problem with population estimates is that they are based only on the number of births and deaths. Region migration, which is a major factor, is not taken into consideration during a population estimate.

For example, based on census figures given by Eich, the expected population, including only births and deaths, for Centre County in 1990 was 119,389. The actual population was 124,812. He said migration was responsible for the extra 5,424 people.