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Non-college Youth

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In 2007, 43% of people between the ages of 18 and 29 had no college experience. There are more youth today with college experience than there were in the late 1960’s.

The unemployment rate for youth with no college experience was more than double that of youth with college experience in 2007 (11% vs. 4%).

Source: Youth Demographics – Youth with No College Experience

2008

Voter turnout for young people ages 18 to 29 rose slightly in 2008 (from 49 to 51 percent).
Between the 2004 and 2008 presidential elections, turnout increased by one percentage point among college-educated young people and by two percentage points among non-college youth. Since 2000, however, turnout among college-educated youth has increased by 12 percentage points and non-college youth turnout has increased by nine percentage points.
Non-college attending young Americans have consistently voted at levels below college attending youth in both presidential and midterm election years. In the 2008 election, turnout for college-educated 18- to 29-year-olds was 62 percent—26 percentage points higher than the turnout rate for non-college youth

In 2008, young people with college experience were almost twice as likely to vote as those without college experience (62% vs. 36%). Between the 2000 and 2008 presidential elections, turnout among college-educated young people increased one point more than it did among lesser-educated youth.

2010

Voter turnout among young American citizens ages 18 to 29 in the 2010 Midterm Election was 24.0%1, according to CIRCLE’s estimates from the recently released 2010 U.S. Census Current Population Survey (CPS), November Supplement.

In the 2010 election, young people with college experience were almost twice as likely to vote as those without college experience (14.2% vs. 30.8%).

Young people with a college degree saw the greatest decline in voting rates compared to their counterparts with less education: turnout dropped four points from 41.0% in 2006 to 37.4% in 2010. However, college graduates voted at a rate three times as high as those with less than a high school degree.

In the 2010 election, young people age 18 to 24 who were currently in college were more likely to vote than their peers who were not currently attending college by a margin of nine percentage points. Turnout gap between college-enrolled and non-enrolled youth have been relatively stable over time, with an exception of 2002.

Full-time college students were more likely vote (26.8%) than part time students (24.9%). Moreover, young Black current college students were more likely than their White counterparts to vote in 2010 (29.6% versus 27.4%). Hispanic College students lagged behind their peers, with a turnout of 22.7%.

Source: The Youth Vote in 2008, Young Voters in the 2008 Presidential Election, The Youth Vote in 2010: Final Estimates Based on Census Data

Young people were strong supporters of candidate Barack Obama, regardless of educational attainment. Of young voters, 65 percent with college experience and 66 percent without college experience voted for Barack Obama in 2008.

In 2008, 18- to 29-year-old voters with college experience were slightly more likely to self- identify as “Republican” than their non-college counterparts. However, almost half of both college and non-college voters self-identified with the Democratic Party (compared to roughly a third in each group in 2004).

Overall, young voters in the 2008 election picked “the economy” as the number one issue facing the country. Young voters with college experience were slightly more likely to choose this issue than their non-college counterparts (see Figure 7). Young people without college experience were more likely to pick “the war in Iraq” (16% vs. 11%) and “health care” (12% vs. 8%) than their counterparts with college experience.

Non-college youth are less engaged than they were in the 1970s in nine out of ten forms of civic engagement.

Source: “Civic Engagement and the Changing Transition to Adulthood”

In 2008, non-college youth (ages 20-29) had an 11% volunteer rate, while youth with college experience reported a higher rate of 25%. The plurality of non-college youth who volunteered in 2006, volunteered with a religious organization (37 percent).