Readership program ranks fifth in nation

By Jordan Paul, MSA Department of Student Services Director, JordanPaul@mizzou.edu
April 25, 2008

Students at MU should be proud of their fifth-ranked USA Today Collegiate Readership Program.

According to statistics provided by USA Today Representative Robert Duffy, MU students have been reading an average of 2,314 newspapers per day during the 2007-2008 academic year.

Pennsylvania State University, where the USA Today Collegiate Readership Program originated in 1997, has the largest readership program in the nation. In addition to Penn State, our program ranks behind those of Rutgers University, Brigham Young University and the University of Nebraska. (Who knew those Huskers could read?) However, the gap is closing with the addition of new distribution points and an expanded summer program.

The readership program provides students with daily (Monday through Friday) issues of USA Today, The New York Times, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the Columbia Missourian for a nominal student fee of $3 per semester. The readership contract is budgeted at $148,200. Students tend to read USA Today the most (785 daily average; 69,053 to date), followed by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (673 daily average; 59,248 to date), The New York Times (545 daily average; 47,975 to date), and the Columbia Missourian (311 daily average; 42,929 to date). Distribution points can be found throughout campus, with 16 card-reader locations and 15 open-air locations available, in addition to daily delivery of two copies of each publication to 39 Greek houses. Popular locations include Brady Commons, Memorial Union and Rollins Commons. If you cannot find a location near you, stop by the Missouri Students Association Department of Student Services in A022 Brady Commons for a map of distribution points.

For those who are curious, we have considered carrying The Kansas City Star, but past surveys have indicated the majority of students prefer the publications already offered. According to our latest survey, 65 percent of students preferred USA Today, 55 percent preferred the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 53 percent preferred The New York Times, 38 percent preferred the Missourian, 31 percent preferred The Kansas City Star and 25 percent preferred The Wall Street Journal. Our survey also indicated that 69 percent of students felt their newspaper readership has increased as a result of the USA Today Collegiate Readership Program, while 51 percent of students indicated they read the newspaper at least three times per week. Perhaps most importantly, 98 percent of students felt the readership program should be continued the following year.

DSS, which oversees the USA Today Collegiate Readership Program, plans to continue expansion of the program. Recently, a new distribution point was introduced at Middlebush Hall, and negotiations are being held with USA Today to have a distribution point added to the intersection of the Agriculture Building and Anheuser-Busch Natural Resources Building. Additionally, given the success of this past year’s summer readership pilot program, DSS has decided to offer a full summer program following the end of the spring semester. Even better, students will not incur any additional costs for this service because funds for the summer program are drawn from money garnered through the program’s student fee but that was not allotted to the initial contract. Congratulations, and keep reading!

All statistics are as of Feb. 1, 2008, the last date for which statistics are available.

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