More Barriers to Student Voting? Not on Our Watch!
A guest post by Sam Novey, Consultant at Foundation for Civic Leadership and Clarissa Unger, Director of Civic Engagement at Young Invincibles
Imagine this: You are 18 years old. You just moved away from home, are about to embark on your college education in a new state, and have a previously unknown sense of responsibility. As the cost of higher education increases, you are racking up a burdensome amount of students loans that you’ll likely be paying off for decades to come.
Or imagine that you just turned 26 years old. You just enrolled in your local community college, and on top of paying for your tuition and books, you also recently enrolled in your own health insurance plan after aging off of your parent’s plan.
Institutions of higher education in our country serve a wide array of diverse students — over 20.2 million of them to be exact — with individual needs, concerns, and life circumstances. But colleges and universities also have the ability to support their students in many ways, including making sure they receive the education and support they need to be active citizens in our democracy.
Most students gain the right to vote at a transitional time in their lives, so it’s no surprise that many of them are uncertain about the details and implications of registering and voting. As new voters, many are unsure whether registering at home or school will impact their residential status or financial aid, feel insecure about their level of political knowledge, and overestimate the difficulty of registering and voting. Colleges and universities can play an important role in helping students overcome both the structural and psychological barriers they face in regards to registering and voting.
Following decades of decline in youth voting since the 1960s, in its 1998 reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, Congress broadened the scope of the act to include, for the first time, a provision on student voting. Congress rightfully saw institutions of higher education as the key to increasing democratic engagement among young people
The 1998 amendments established a clear role for colleges and universities in expanding access to voter registration information, making it easier for students on college campuses to exercise their right to vote and make their voices heard on the many policies that affect their lives. Specifically, it requires colleges and universities to “make a good faith effort” to distribute voter registration forms and gives important guidance on how and when to do this to be most effective.
We know from exit polls and voting records that colleges and universities are having an impact. According to the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) at Tufts University’s Tisch College, in the 2012 presidential election 66 percent of youth (ages 18–29) with any college experience turned out to vote, while 35 percent of youth with no college experience turned out. While this shows a strong correlation between college experience and political engagement, Tisch College’s Institute for Democracy & Higher Education recently released data showing increases in turnout between elections among college students, with turnout rising from 45.1 percent to 48.3 percent from 2012 to 2016.
It’s undeniable that colleges and universities can and are having an impact on the number of students participating as active citizens in our democracy. That’s why in early 2016, the organizations we work for, the Foundation for Civic Leadership and Young Invincibles, came together to create the Students Learn Students Vote (SLSV) Coalition — a nonpartisan group of over 200 organizations across the country working together to develop and scale data-driven strategies for engaging college students as voters by working with college administrators, faculty members, and student leaders. Through the SLSV Coalition, our partners provide expertise and support to hundreds of campuses all across the country that ranges from helping to get polling sites on campus, to integrating voter registration into class registration systems, and so much in between.
That’s why our coalition was surprised to see the House Education and Workforce Committee roll back guidance around the voter registration provision in its bill to reauthorize the Higher Education Act. Young Invincibles, along with 42 other members of the SLSV Coalition issued a letter to the Committee in support of protecting and expanding the campus voter registration provision. You can view our letter here.
The last thing we need to do is add more barriers to student voting. Colleges and universities should continue to be reminded of their obligation to educate the next generation of participating citizens — whether they be 18 year olds who moved away from home for the first time or older students going back to school and simultaneously facing the implications of policies for the first time.
We will be monitoring the Higher Education Act’s reauthorization process as the bill moves through the House and the Senate. We’ll keep you in the loop, and we hope you’ll raise up your voice with us to maintain strong support for student voters.
