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Ellen's avatar

The "real votes"?! I disagree with your characterization of college kids as affluent voters. Millions of students attend public universities and community colleges like the one that Kamala Harris visited, and many of them had to take out student loans to do so. And there are all those organizations that are engaging with young voters, whether or not they attend college.

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Michele's avatar

As a former educator, I know lots of kids who went on to some kind of post high school education often working their butts off in the summer, holding a job down while going to school, and taking out student loans. We helped one student who got zero help from her parents.

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BlueRootsRadio's avatar

I speaking in terms of numbers. I don't know the exact number but it should be easily extracted from census data and college attendance data. To think college kids and the affluent are enough belies the reality of a 50/50 between Biden and Trump at this point.

I've heard/read plenty of stories about college kids either not voting or not able to thanks to draconian state laws.

I'd also posit more or as many kids have student loans who didn't or weren't able to graduate than did.

Organizations are different from candidates directly engaging young voters. It's the same with the rural voters Democrats have ignored for decades in favor of the metro/suburban voters.

I disagree with you.

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Barbara Keating's avatar

Blue Roots, a bit of student loan trivia: Of students who default on their Fed student loans, a large % are тАЬlow amountтАЭ borrowers. This is because the students borrow early on (eg; freshman/sophomore year) and then, for whatever reason, are unable to continue their attendance, thus leaving school in debt, but without the benefit of a degree (and all that it implies). At least this was the case, before retirement a decade ago, having worked in student aid at a Univ for 40 yrs & doing a lot of loan counseling (and following the demographics & stats at the time).

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VermontGirl57's avatar

Thank you for sharing your actual EXPERIENCE on the student loan situation.

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Barbara Keating's avatar

VG57, I had no clue when I took a job at age 18 @ a UC campus fin aid office & then a year later to attend college & w/ the nice recommendation letter given me, got a position @ the farthest northern Cal State & that IтАЩd end up working there for 40 yrsтАФ-a true public service job that I took to like a duck to water, a real right livelihood. Our crew was passionate about access to higher ed & the best service we could deliver (almost all of us had been on fin aid as students ourselves)тАжmade lifelong friends among my coworkers & we still gather together a couple of times a month. And, oh my, do I have a lot of opinions regarding student aid, especially student loans!

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Carol C's avatar

Yes, thank you! Sharing actual personal experience draws me in far more than posts sharing outrage at the latest outrage. Sharing outrage feels good, too, but usually provides less food for thought than someoneтАЩs experience.

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BlueRootsRadio's avatar

It's good Biden is doing good things like this but without connecting in person like campus visits, most will never hear about it.

https://www.npr.org/2023/09/20/1200483937/biden-climate-corps-job-training

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