Some people want to tax university students in Pittsburgh because of the burden students place on municipal services, but have they considered what students add to our city?

Some people condemn all students for the bad behavior of a few, such as those who caused property damage during the G-20 summit and after the Steelers' Super Bowl victory. But they ignore the vital contributions of thousands of students who regularly perform community service, exemplifying University of Pittsburgh Chancellor Mark Nordenberg's adage, "The city is our campus."

Shouldn't we consider ...

More than 3,000 students last Saturday poured into communities throughout the region to serve in the second annual Pitt Make A Difference Day. They picked up trash, mulched gardens and planted bulbs.

More than 4,000 students work monthly with the Oakland Planning and Development Corp. to "Adopt a Block" and "Clean Up Oakland."

Jumpstart Pittsburgh, Pitt's Project Tutor and other student groups spend thousands of hours tutoring children in Head Start centers and elementary schools in the city.

School of Social Work students commit more than 300,000 internship hours to human service organizations through yearly internships and monthly service projects. Pharmacy students through Project Brown Bag help elderly residents identify dangerous drug interactions among the many medications they take. Dental students provide free services to many who otherwise could not afford dental care. Law students work in several Pitt law clinics. Nursing students staff community clinics for underserved populations and health-related professional students participate in summer projects to address local health needs and disparities.

Students in the School of Education work with hundreds of children and adults who use Trees Hall for recreation and special programs under Pitt's decades-old Community Leisure Learning Program. Pitt athletic teams each weekend during spring term teach sports, sportsmanship and healthy lifestyles to low-income students.

Many courses encourage faculty and students to apply classroom knowledge in working with community partners. They have studied local issues, enhanced programs through the creative arts, examined water flow to help refurbish the lake in Panther Hollow, designed public buildings, improved disability access, among many other activities.

From monthly mass food distributions at the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank, to building homes with Habitat for Humanity, to a Student Philanthropy Project that raises and donates funds to area nonprofits, to the Keep It Real students who tutor and mentor Somali refugee children in the city, there are hundreds of examples of Pitt students engaging in community service and civic affairs too numerous to mention. And Pitt's is not the only campus engaged in this way; all city universities engage in similar community-service efforts.

There will always be a few bad apples, and in the case of the Super Bowl partying, university official went to extensive lengths to identify and discipline students who were arrested or responsible for damage.

As we assess whether to place a tax on students for the burden they place on our city, we also must recognize the value of the millions of hours of community service they perform, not to mention the millions of dollars they spend in the local economy. Community service also helps students fell committed to a place, and these are the future good citizens Pittsburgh desperately needs to keep and attract.

While Pitt obviously provides a substantial economic benefit to the city and region through its employment, research, technology development and commercial expenditures, it was Pitt's extensive and lesser-known civic engagement that helped leap-frog it to No. 1 among public universities in helping to improve its local community, according to Evan Doebelle's second Saviors of Our Cities survey.

This is the true hallmark of Pitt students ... whether they are valued or not, taxed or not.

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