July 26, 2022
What’s At Stake for Young Voters
By Lisa Herforth-Hebbert
Young people coast to coast detail the most critical issues in the 2022 midterms, from student debt to abortion to climate change.
EDITOR’S NOTE: In what many are calling the most consequential midterm elections in a lifetime, the November ballot will decide all 435 voting seats in the House of Representatives as well as the majority of statehouses and state assemblies nationwide. The stakes are higher than ever with the future in the balance, so we had a diverse group of student journalists living coast to coast to let us know what they think is the most important issue for young people this fall. Obviously there are multiple, if not countless, pressing issues. We asked young people simply to talk about an issue that they felt is of critical importance and what they think needs to be done about it. The answers, from fourteen student writers, detail a wide-range of critical concerns of which we should all be aware.
The most pressing issue for young people in the upcoming midterm elections is student loan cancellation—not only because of the uncertainty that has surrounded the student loan debt crisis over the past two years but also because many young people will likely graduate into recessionary conditions. Student debt is an issue that impacts more than 45 million Americans, and one that carries far beyond one’s collegiate years. Expensive degrees have become more of a necessity, rather than a choice. Yet getting one holds so many people back from opportunities that their education was supposed to bring them. During Joe Biden’s presidential campaign, he made alleviating student debt a core part of his messaging, particularly as something that can be accomplished through executive power.
