The nation’s poverty rate has reached 15.1 percent, the highest level since 1993, according to Census Bureau data released last week. About 46.2 million people are considered in need.

The unemployment rate appears to be stuck above 9 percent, and over 14 million Americans are out of work.

The government defines the poverty line as income of $22,314 a year for a family of four and $11,139 for an individual.

Children account for 35.5 percent of people in poverty in the United States.

These numbers should affect us. We should feel something in the pits of our stomachs when we hear them, and not just because we’re soon going to be thrust into the big, bad world and be searching for jobs ourselves.

Many readers will recall last year’s Census Bureau figures when Milwaukee emerged as the country’s fourth-most impoverished big city in 2009. The Milwaukee poverty rate reached 27 percent. Nearly 160,000 Milwaukeeans were living in poverty.

There can be little wonder as to why juvenile robbery on Milwaukee college campuses has spiked in recent months.

We are not justifying these crimes, but we are challenging the Marquette community to elevate the discussion surrounding these issues.

This is our city. We live here, in the midst of these numbers. We attend a university where tuition and fees cost over $40,000 a year, and we see people sleeping in bus stops next to our dorms.

This is the crux of attending a Jesuit school. Jesuit schools are purposefully located in urban environments so that students are not cut off from their communities. They strive to make students aware of the world around them and make them question how they fit into the broader picture of society.

We should feel uncomfortable when we see someone digging in a dumpster for food or asking for money on our way home from the library.

Poverty affects everyone. We cannot be proud of a city or a country in which we, as a people, have failed each other so miserably.

But we are students. Our budget and our time are restricted.

So what can we do?

Of course we can participate in service programs on and off campus. There are three homeless shelters mere blocks away. There are prisons, health centers and schools that can use our help just bus rides away. We can tutor, we can cook, we can build.

But more importantly, we can listen.

“Homeless” is not a synonym for “scary.” No one wants to be in a situation of need. No one wants to feel like he or she is less valuable than anyone else.

Whatever a person’s situation, he or she is experiencing a loss of dignity and we can ease that loss as simply as nodding or smiling to a person at a bus stop. While always maintaining an awareness of our surroundings and taking necessary precautions for our safety, we do not need to be afraid to talk to our Milwaukee neighbors. Most of the time, they are simply seeking human connection and interaction—just like we are.

In light of these statistics, though, we also need to remind ourselves to make our education here worth it.

If we are always perusing Facebook instead of doing homework, we need to ask ourselves if we can justify spending nearly four times as much money in one year than what an individual living below the poverty line is making to survive just a few blocks away.

If we spend four years living in the fourth-most impoverished city in the country and never reach out to talk to those around us, we are missing the point of being at a Jesuit school. We are missing a chance to step out of our comfort zones and challenge ourselves.

And we are missing the opportunity to connect with our fellow human beings.

As the Rev. Greg Boyle said last semester, “There can be no justice without kinship.”

If we claim to seek justice in the world, we need to start by creating the kinship right here on campus.