College student voters are 'propelled by concerns that directly affect them,' such as the economy, global warming

College students working to get youth registered to
vote. (Photo by Yunuen Bonaparte, Hechinger Report)

This year's election issues have energized college student voters to weigh in on state and national issues. "Students had a decisive impact in several battleground states in 2022," reports Jon Marcus for The Hechinger Report, which covers education. "And they want to do it again."

Whereas college voters have typically had lower election turnout numbers, state and national debates over big topics have inspired more younger voters to engage. "Young people say that they’re propelled by concerns that directly affect them, such as global warming, the economy, reproductive rights," Marcus writes. "More than half of Americans ages 18 to 24 turned out for the 2020 general election."

Heated partisanship has led younger voters to get involved. College student activist Andrew LoMonte, told Marcus, "What people are realizing is that the issues the candidates are talking about actually matter to us. . . . You’d think the dysfunction would scare people off, but it’s a motivator."

The younger vote matters most in swing states where winning margins can be razor-thin. "Young voters had “a decisive impact” on Senate races in 2022 in battleground states including Wisconsin, Nevada, Georgia and Pennsylvania. . . . Sixty-six percent of college students voted in 2020, up 14 percentage points from 2016. Younger students ages 18 to 21 voted at the highest rates of all."

States with abortion-related referendums have seen big jumps in youth voting registration. "College students were widely credited last year with helping elect a liberal candidate to the Wisconsin state Supreme Court, which is due to take up two major abortion cases," Marus adds. "They have also registered and voted at high rates in several swing states."

Increases in youth voting registrations do not necessarily mean "that high youth voter turnout in November is assured. The proportion of college students who voted in the 2022 midterms was down from the record set in 2018," Marcus notes. "Not all groups of students vote in equally high numbers. . . . [In 2020] students majoring in education, social sciences, history, and agricultural and natural resources turned out at the highest rates; those in engineering and technical fields, at the lowest."