Education for All Creates Guidebook to Increase Student Voting

In an effort to encourage more postsecondary students to register and vote, Education for All (EFA), a group of over 250 college presidents, mostly from community colleges, has created the Student Voting Brief, a strategy guide for institutional leadership, CEOs, and partners to help instill civic participation and successful campus voting initiatives.

“We're trying to get students to be engaged in their communities, and voting is just part of that,” said Dr. George Boggs, president and CEO emeritus of the American Association of Community Colleges, and president emeritus of Palomar College in San Marcos, California. “It's not just the national election. It's elections, local, state, and national that are going to affect the lives of these students.”

Almost 50 higher education associations and state systems have signed on in support of the voting brief, including the American Council on Education, Achieving the Dream, Excelencia in Education, and Diverse: Issues In Higher Education.

“This is a nonpartisan effort. We want to get students registered and voting. Our concern is that students in higher ed traditionally have not voted at the same rate as the population in general,” said Boggs. “That changed in the last election, but it didn’t change for community college students who register and vote at about 10 percentage points less than four-year college students. And people of color in our country do not participate in voting as much as the white population.”

The voting brief offers a collection of resources, some from the federal government, some from postsecondary educational organizations, and others from independent collaborations of campuses. Each can provide useful and creative ways for students to become interested in voting, connecting the dots between their actions and results at the ballot box.

Dr. George Boggs, president and CEO emeritus of the American Association of Community Colleges, and president emeritus of Palomar College.“A lot of people are saying, ‘Well, my vote won't make a difference.’ But it will,” said Boggs. “Important issues are at the forefront right now: women's health concerns versus abortion, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) issues, woke [vs.] ‘anti woke.’ You could just go down the line of all the things that are going to be affecting our students. We've got to get them to understand that their vote does make a difference, and we need them to participate in the democracy.”

Dr. Michael H. Gavin, president of Delta College, a two-year institution in University City, Michigan, and chair of the EFA, agreed. The EFA was formed when he and other college presidents became concerned with the sheer number of legislative attacks on DEI seen around the country.