The Students Learn Students Vote (SLSV) Coalition, the largest nonpartisan network in the US dedicated to growing college student voter participation, praises the efforts of college and university student leaders, administrators, faculty and staff members, and nonprofit partners who helped college students turn out at a 31.3% rate in the 2022 midterm elections, according to Tufts University’s National Study of Learning, Voting, and Engagement’s (NSLVE) “Democracy Counts 2022” report, which was released today.
The 2022 turnout rate is the second-highest among midterm elections since NSLVE began tracking student voter data in 2012, demonstrating that the historic gains made in student voter turnout during the previous midterm election cycle could largely be sustained among an almost entirely new cohort of college student voters.
“NSLVE’s ‘Democracy Counts 2022’ report shows how far the nonpartisan student voter engagement movement has come in the last decade,” said SLSV Coalition Co-Founder and Executive Director Clarissa Unger. “Even after the vast majority of the students who voted at historic rates in 2018 moved on from higher education, we were able to sustain a baseline of elevated participation among a new population facing a distinct set of challenges.”
After just 19% of college student voters turned out in the 2014 midterms, student voter participation more than doubled to 40% in 2018. The 2022 midterm turnout rate of 31.3%, achieved amid an overall downturn in voter participation, demonstrates the growing impact of student voters and the work of hundreds of colleges and universities, as well as local, state, and national organizations – much of which began in the last decade – in building a national infrastructure of nonpartisan student voter engagement on college campuses throughout the United States.
Of note, student voter registration rates, which reached 73.3% in 2018 and 83% in 2020, were largely sustained in 2022 as 76% students were registered to vote in the midterms. According to Tufts University’s Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (“CIRCLE”), youth voter registration rates in 2024 – which encompasses all eligible voters ages 18-29, including non-students – still lag behind 2020 rates. With time still left to address this issue, 2022 NSLVE data offers evidence that the nonpartisan engagement strategies used on college campuses are effective in sustaining registration rates across a variety of voting environments.
“The NSLVE’s 2022 report illustrates the impact of a national movement that helped normalize and facilitate voter participation for millions of college students,” said SLSV Coalition Deputy Director Eddy Zerbe. “Even beyond the top-line participation figures, data shows many signs of real, sustainable progress while also offering insights into where we can direct more efforts going forward.”
The SLSV Coalition is hard at work to ensure turnout numbers and overall engagement continue to progress as they have in the last decade, leading the Community College Concert Competition – a nationwide nonpartisan campaign to close the turnout gap between student voters at 2-year colleges and 4-year public universities – alongside several prominent national partners, revamping National Voter Education Week – an annual nonpartisan week of action to help voters bridge the gap between registering and casting their ballot – to better meet the needs of today’s electorate, and distributing nearly $500,000 in grants to colleges and universities throughout the US to execute strategies to ask every student at their institution to participate in our democracy.
The SLSV Coalition thanks the NSLVE team for their efforts in drafting and distributing the 2022 NSLVE data, as well as the philanthropic donors who make student voter engagement work possible, and looks forward to working with partners throughout the Coalition to create even more growth and engagement in 2024 and beyond.
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About the SLSV Coalition
The SLSV Coalition is the national hub and largest nonpartisan network in the United States dedicated to increasing college student voter participation. The Coalition convenes and connects partners, campuses, and students with each other and with resources and programming towards achieving a vision of ensuring that every student has easy and equal access to participate in every election. They use data, relationships, celebration, and easy-to-follow planning structures, to help campus and local leaders register and turnout more student voters every year. The SLSV Coalition is a project of NEO Philanthropy. NEO Philanthropy is strictly nonpartisan, and does not support or oppose any candidate or party.