Young Graduates Drive Socialist Gains as Only 25% Took College Economics
Updated
Updated · Fox News · Aug 20
Young Graduates Drive Socialist Gains as Only 25% Took College Economics
2 articles · Updated · Fox News · Aug 20
Summary
Support for socialist and progressive candidates is rising most sharply among young, college-educated voters, a pattern highlighted by recent wins in New York, Michigan and Minnesota.
Rising living costs and economic insecurity are cited as key drivers, while support is weaker among non-college working-class voters despite candidates' worker-focused platforms.
Only about one-quarter of students who began college in 2012 received any college-level economics instruction, fueling arguments that graduates lack the tools to judge competing policy claims.
That gap is prompting a push for pre-partisan civic education centered on history, constitutionalism and economics, with programs such as the University of Texas at Austin's School of Civic Leadership held up as a model.
The broader claim is that higher education should equip all graduates to understand incentives, tradeoffs and institutions before they vote to remake the U.S. economic and political system.