College-student voting doubled nationwide, according to national study

Greenfield Community College (GCC) today reported that student voting on campus was up in last year's election, increasing to 47.1% in 2018 from a rate of 25.6% in 2014. GCC's 2018 voting rate of 47.1% is also higher than the 2018 voting rate of 39.1% for all institutions. Registration rates and voting rates of registered students also increased in the same timeframe. The full campus report can be viewed at: https://bit.ly/2ouNAX1.

"Ensuring that our students are aware of issues impacted by political decision making is important to us at GCC. In addition to hosting voter registration drives, we offer co-curricular programming on topics such as the border wall, opioid epidemic, hunger, homelessness, Veterans' issues, and immigration. We are extremely proud of the level of civic engagement demonstrated by our students in the most recent election," offers Associate Dean of Community Engagement, Judy Raper, Ed.D.

The report is based on the National Study of Learning, Voting, and Engagement (NSLVE), conducted by IDHE, which is the only national study of college-student voting. It is based on the voting records of more than 10 million students at more than 1,000 colleges and universities in all 50 states and the District of Columbia; IDHE does not receive any information that could individually identify students or how they voted. The study provides reports to participating colleges and universities, like Greenfield Community College which use them to support political learning and civic engagement, as well as to identify and address gaps in political and civic participation.