At least one demographic group is particularly happy with the results of the presidential election.
“The big winners were young people and student voters,” Alexandria Harris, executive director of the Andrew Goodman Foundation, told Yahoo Finance Live (video above). “They were highly motivated by this question about student debt. … Students have gone into debilitating debt just to get education.”
With more than 40 million Americans owing creditors more than $1.5 trillion in student loan debt, President-elect Joe Biden’s promise to cancel $10,000 in student loan debt for all borrowers, among other measures to reform student loan servicing and the higher education industry, resonated with young voters.
Young voter turnout
As of Nov. 9, according to Tufts University, 17% of the votes cast in the 2020 election were from young voters (aged 18 to 29). In 2016, their votes constituted 16% of the overall vote.
The university’s analysis of the National Election Pool and AP VoteCast data also noted that young voters may have helped Biden win the presidency in key states.
In a battleground state like Georgia, for instance, young Black voters voted overwhelmingly for the former vice president — 90% for Biden, as compared to 8% for Trump — as seen in the chart below. Young voters aged 18 to 29 formed 21% of votes in the state.
“Georgia was a major focal for us this year, and we contacted voters across the state,” explained Harris. Harris’ organization’s primary focus is to mobilize young voters.
“We were text messaging, we were emailing,” she explained. “We helped students and young people cure their ballots if they were rejected — we're still doing that, actually. And so our focus was really, really targeted. We also did a lot of voter registration.”
Is debt cancellation coming?
And since Biden ran on the student loan forgiveness platform, are we actually going to see $10,000 in loans being cancelled by the feds?
“I hope so,” responded Harris, “but Lord knows.”
And given the estimated turnout of college students this election, that “means that now we're really going to hear politicians caring about what young people think,” she noted. And “this issue about cancellation of debt is a really big issue.”
So “this record-breaking number is going to make politicians really care about what students say, and I'm hoping that people really adhere to their promises,” she added.
College affordability key issue for some voters
Around 62% of college seniors who graduated last year from public and non-profit colleges owed an average of $28,950 in student debt, a report by The Institute for College Access & Success found. That average is up 56% from 2004, when a fresh graduate would have owed about $18,550.
Josh Clements, a senior engineering major at James Madison University in Virginia, told Yahoo Finance that the issue of college affordability was a personal one for him.
“The driver for a more open educational experience for millions is something I strongly hold,” Clements explained.
Coming from a family that is considered lower-income as compared to his peers at the university, and hence benefiting from scholarships that are helping him afford his degree, Clements stressed that he knew “thousands of people my age faced with similar financial situations that couldn’t go to college because the scholarships weren’t available to them or they did not receive them.”
The decision to go to college should not be “based off of your income,” he added.
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Aarthi is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. She can be reached at aarthi@yahoofinance.com. Follow her on Twitter @aarthiswami.
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