Oliver Darcy is a media insider who left CNN to write his own blog, Status. There he posts the scoop on what is happening behind the headlines.
Darcy writes that the latest discouraging developmentsat The Washington Post. Once a force for courageous and independent journalism, its owner Jeff Bezos is transforming it, and not in a good way. The exodus of its best journalists, editorial writers, and opinion writers has been sad.
It’s getting worse.
The Post’s slogan is: “Democracy dies in darkness.” The lights are going out in the newsroom.
Darcy reports:
Last month, as The Washington Post weathered an exodus of staffers opting for buyouts, Karen Attiah logged on to X with an observation: “So… officially, I’m the last Black staff columnist left in the Washington Post’s opinion section,” the award-winning journalist wrote. (Technically, Keith Richburg and Theodore Johnson remain as contributing columnists.) At the time, Attiah was still deciding whether to accept The Post’s voluntary exit package or remain at the embattled Jeff Bezos–owned newspaper.
Soon after, I’m told that Attiah sat down with Adam O’Neal, The Post’s newly installed opinion editor. As Status previously reported, O’Neal had been holding similar one-on-one meetings with columnists, delivering what sounded to many like a human resources–approved talking point: their work didn’t align with his vision for the section and they should consider taking the buyout.
O’Neal likely assumed Attiah would follow the path of most colleagues who heard the same pitch and head for the door. Attiah, for her part, may have been hoping for the opposite, that he’d affirm her value and express a desire to keep her. In any case, neither scenario materialized. The meeting, I’m told, was tense and went poorly, to put it mildly.
Ultimately, Attiah declined the buyout. Just last week, she published a column on how she gained 20 pounds of muscle, framing bodybuilding as a “deeply feminine act of self-consciousness.” Still, her future at The Post looks uncertain. As O’Neal indicated during their meeting, her work seems at odds with its emerging editorial direction, and it’s hard to imagine she’s long for his world.
Indeed, while O’Neal’s vision for the newspaper’s opinion arm has been remarkably opaque, this week delivered a few clues about the direction he seeks to take it. On Tuesday, O’Neal published two pieces from Trump administration officials. The first, by National Institutes of Health director Jay Bhattacharya, argued that the Health and Human Services decision to “wind down its mRNA vaccine development activities” was a “necessary” move—a stance that I’m told triggered reader blowback.
The second was more eyebrow-raising. Amid alarm over Donald Trump’s seizure of Washington, D.C.’s police force, O’Neal published an op-edfrom former Fox News host–turned–district attorney Jeanine Pirro, touting “the fight to make D.C. safe and beautiful.” The piece effectively justified Trump’s militarization of the capital and painted the city as a crime-infested area. While not quite as incendiary as Tom Cotton’s infamous New York Times op-ed calling to “send in the troops,” its timing and framing were jarring for a paper that still claims “Democracy Dies in Darkness.”
The Post’s own editorial board followed up with a curious piece that largely took Trump’s stated intentions at face value. It noted that crime in the city can’t be solved “from the Oval Office or by swarming the city’s streets with Humvees,” but offered no real condemnation of Trump’s power grab. Instead, it effectively argued that Trump’s action would not work as a permanent solution because it “will be temporary” and “long-term solutions will be needed.” Further, the piece framed Trump as merely delivering on a “law-and-order message” to voters—again, a tone in line with the posture O’Neal appears to favor.
“They are turning The Post into a mouthpiece for the Trump administration,” one former opinion editor commented to me Wednesday evening, adding that such editorials would not have been published under previous section chiefs.
Beyond the editorials, O’Neal’s internal standing is murky, according to people familiar with the matter. He’s pushed out much of the previous leadership and a number of marquee columnists, but the people familiar have told me that many of those remaining still view him with skepticism. The sentiment is unsurprising, given that during his brief stint at The Dispatch, his abrasive leadership style prompted staffers at the conservative magazine to complain within weeks of his appointment to management. In fact, I’ve since learned that he was instructed at The Dispatch to undergo leadership training to address concerns about his management style.
Of course, Bezos is unlikely to care how the existing staff responds to O’Neal, just as he hasn’t seemed bothered by how much disdain there is for publisher Will Lewis within the newspaper’s K Street halls. For now, staffers like Attiah now face a stark choice: adapt to O’Neal’s vision or risk their future in the opinion section. Either way, The Post’s opinion pages are headed for certain transformation.
What a betrayal of the legacy of the Graham family, especially Kathryn Graham, who considered the Post a sacred trust and believed that Bezos would be a responsible steward of its integrity.
Kindergartners paint a mural at Ellen Ochoa Learning Center in LAUSD.
Credit: Courtesy of Nightflare
Marcos Hernandez lived in a garage for years when he first came to this country from El Salvador as a refugee at age 11. He left his small pueblo of San Gerardo alone, fleeing a country ravaged by war, seeking a better life.
“After you’ve been hungry, after you’ve been bombed and you have survived so many times, you build up this belief that I must be here for a purpose,” said Hernandez, a soft-spoken man with an understated manner that belies his heroic life story. “There must be a reason. And you just try to follow that. I am here to serve my community.”
That’s why he’s devoted his career to lifting the lives of children in Cudahy, a tiny, densely populated, and tightly knit city near the Los Angeles River and the 710 freeway, where roughly a third of the population lives below the poverty line. Hernandez went on to become the principal of a school, the Ellen Ochoa Learning Center, just a few blocks from the garage he once called home.
“This is the poorest city west of the Mississippi River,” says Hernandez, who is candid about his struggles. “I failed most of my classes my first year because I worked the graveyard shift. Almost everyone on my block belonged to a gang. Getting in and out of that community was hard. There was always somebody waiting to jump me because I didn’t want to join the gang.”
Marcos Hernandez, principal, leading an arts education project at Ellen Ochoa Learning Center in LAUSD.Courtesy Marcos Hernandez
Poverty is often generational. Hernandez understands the lingering trauma it leaves behind. He will never forget living in that garage, only being allowed to enter the main house and use the bathroom at certain times of day.
“It was rough, but after a while, you train your body,” he says, matter-of-factly.
Overcoming adversity with grace is in his bones. He doesn’t dwell on his own hardships, which include battling cancer, but he certainly understands the power of resilience. When he works with families in his district, he knows how hard they fight to keep their heads above water. Most of the parents at Ellen Ochoa did not finish high school, but all want better for their children, many of whom are English language learners.
“There are patterns of oppression that our students experience,” says Hernandez, a father of three who radiates patience and calm. “It’s this perpetual cycle where they just don’t have the opportunities that kids in other communities have. I want to raise that bar. The thing that I have always said, that I try to live by every day, is whatever kids in Malibu, kids in Palos Verdes, have access to, I want kids here to have.”
That’s where arts education comes in. He sees the arts as a path to equity, a way to help children heal from the scars left by grinding poverty. That’s the vision of Turnaround Arts: California, an arts education program founded by famed architect Frank Gehry and education advocate Malissa Shriver that transforms the state’s lowest-performing schools through the arts.
“We’re talking about human beings, not data points and test scores,” said Shriver. “People have thought the arts were like a cherry on top. And instead, we’re actually the undergirding of it all. We’re not the extra, we’re the foundation.”
Affiliated with the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washngton, D.C., the project has reached 35,000 students in 33 elementary and middle schools across the state in the last 10 years, and hopes are high that Proposition 28, the state’s new arts education mandate, will help fuel expansion.
“It’s a huge driver to ensure more equity so that we’re not relying on parent fundraising to decide who gets the arts in schools,” said Turnaround’s executive director, Barbara Palley. “One thing that we’re excited about is it would open the path for more schools that are interested in Turnaround Arts.”
Hernandez believes the children who are least likely to be exposed to the arts are those who need it the most. Most schools that participate in this program see gains in both reading and math, a finding that tracks with exhaustive evidence that the arts boost academic achievement as well as spark engagement.
“My specialty is supporting students who are struggling,” he says. “They need a second chance or a third chance to get them going. Because that was me. This education thing wasn’t in my mind at all. It wasn’t on my radar. I needed money.”
His childhood was often grueling, working in the fields at the age of 10, becoming a dishwasher at 12, but he has never wavered in his love of people, his desire to make a difference in the world. When his father questioned why he’d give up a solid job as a restaurant manager to go to college, he stuck to his guns.
“You should have seen his face. He was kind of happy for me, but he couldn’t understand why you’d leave a good job,” he recalls. “It clicked for me at that age that the more that we could push ourselves, the more we could have an impact on future generations.”
A mural painted by students at Ellen Ochoa Learning Center in LAUSD.Credit: Courtesy of Nightflare
That’s the level of dedication he has brought to his work at Ellen Ochoa, and he plans to bring the same tenacity to his new assignment as principal of nearby International Studies Learning Center at Legacy High School. While he says it will be hard to walk away from Ellen Ochoa, where he has watched the arts bolster academics and curb misbehavior, he feels certain the work will continue.
“It’s not about me as an individual,” he says with characteristic humility. “It’s a collective project; it belongs to the community. They own it.”
Covid hit the district hard. The school quickly became a community hub, providing thousands of meals, Covid tests and vaccinations for those in need.
Hernandez has used the arts as a tool to help rebuild a sense of community, an appreciation of togetherness, coming out of the pandemic. The students have formed an orchestra, they’ve painted murals, and they’ve even designed buildings with the renowned Gehry.
“This is their land. This is their community,” says Hernandez. “When you walk by with your family and you look at the beautiful murals and you say, you know what? I did that. That creates incredible pride for our students.”
His secret weapon is empathy. He treats everyone like family, taking time to get to know children as people as well as students.
A mural painted by kindergarten students at Ellen Ochoa Learning Center in LAUSD.Credit: Courtesy of Nightflare
“Marcos cares for every family member and every child like his own,” said Alison Yoshimoto-Towery, executive director of the UC/CSU Collaborative for Neuroscience, Diversity and Learning. “He’s probably done over 500 home visits to learn about the hopes and dreams of his families, and to build trust with the community.”
Giving back is a way of life for Hernandez. He’s an activist as well as an educator. He often rides his bike to work from Long Beach, and along the way, he gives necessities to those living on the bike path by the river.
“He’s a humble-servant type of leader,” says Shriver. “He’s not climbing over people to get to the next position. … There’s no ego there. He treats everybody with a lot of dignity. That’s why he’s such a tremendous leader and also just effective.”
Education isn’t a job for him — it’s a calling. He works nights, weekends, and even during vacations to engage his students in activities that stimulate hearts as well as minds, from running marathons to painting murals.
“That’s my passion,” he says simply. “That’s my purpose, my purpose is to serve.”
In 2025, much of my professional focus has been on small colleges in the United States. But as many of you know, my colleague and Edu Alliance co-founder, Dr. Senthil Nathan, and I also consult extensively in the international higher education space. Senthil, based in Abu Dhabi, UAE—where Edu Alliance was founded was asked by a close friend of ours, Chet Haskell, about how the Middle East and its students are reacting to the recent moves by the Trump Administration. Dr. Nathan shared a troubling May 29th article from The National, a UAE English language paper titled, “It’s not worth the risk”: Middle East students put US dreams on hold amid Trump visa crackdown.
The article begins with this chilling line:
“Young people in the Middle East have spoken of their fears after the US government decided to freeze overseas student interviews and plan to begin vetting their social media accounts. The directive signed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and sent to diplomatic and consular posts halts interview appointments at US universities.”
The UAE, home to nearly 10 million people—90% of whom are expatriates—is a global crossroads. Many of their children attend top-tier international high schools and are academically prepared to study anywhere in the world. Historically, the United States has been a top choice for both undergraduate and graduate education.
But that is changing.
This new wave of student hesitation, and in many cases fear, represents a broader global shift. Today, even the most qualified international students are asking whether the United States is still a safe, welcoming, or stable destination for higher education. And their concerns are justified.
At a time when U.S. institutions are grappling with enrollment challenges—including a shrinking pool of domestic high school graduates—we are simultaneously sending signals that dissuade international students from coming. That’s not just bad policy. It’s bad economics.
According to NAFSA: Association of International Educators, international students contributed $43.8 billion to the U.S. economy during the 2023–2024 academic year and supported 378,175 jobs across the country. These students fill key seats in STEM programs, support local economies, and enrich our campuses in ways that go far beyond tuition payments.
And the stakes go beyond higher education.
A 2024 study found that 101 companies in the S&P 500 are led by foreign-born CEOs. Many of these executives earned their degrees at U.S. universities, underscoring how American higher education is not just a national asset but a global talent incubator that fuels our economy and leadership.
Here are just a few examples:
Jensen Huang: Born in Taiwan (NVIDIA) – B.S. from Oregon State, M.S. from Stanford
Elon Musk: Born in South Africa (Tesla, SpaceX) – B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania
Sundar Pichai: Born in India (Alphabet/Google) – M.S. from Stanford, MBA from Wharton
Mike Krieger: Born in Brazil (Co-founder of Instagram) B.S. and M.S. Symbolic Systems and Human-Computer Interaction, Stanford University
Satya Nadella: Born in India (Microsoft) – M.S. from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, MBA from the University of Chicago
Max Levchin: Born in Ukraine (Co-founder of PayPal, Affirm), Bachelor’s in Computer Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Arvind Krishna: Born in India (IBM) – Ph.D. from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Safra Catz: Born in Israel (Oracle) – Undergraduate & J.D. from University of Pennsylvania
Jane Fraser: Born in the United Kingdom (Citigroup) – MBA from Harvard Business School
Nikesh Arora: Born in India (Palo Alto Networks) – MBA from Northeastern
Jan Koum: Born in Ukraine (Co-founder of WhatsApp), Studied Computer Science (did not complete degree) at San Jose State University
These leaders represent just a fraction of the talent pipeline shaped by U.S. universities.
According to a 2023 American Immigration Council report, 44.8% of Fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants or their children, including iconic firms like Apple, Google, and Tesla. Together, these companies generate $8.1 trillion in annual revenue and employ over 14.8 million people globally.
The Bottom Line
The American higher education brand still carries immense prestige. But prestige alone won’t carry us forward. If we continue to restrict and politicize student visas, we will lose not only potential students but also future scientists, entrepreneurs, job creators, and community leaders.
We must ask: Are our current policies serving national interests, or undermining them?
Our classrooms, campuses, corporations, and communities are stronger when they include the world’s brightest minds. Let’s not close the door on a future we have long helped build.
Dean Hoke is Managing Partner of Edu Alliance Group, a higher education consultancy. He formerly served as President/CEO of the American Association of University Administrators (AAUA). With decades of experience in higher education leadership, consulting, and institutional strategy, he brings a wealth of knowledge on international partnerships and market evaluations.
Daylarlyn Gonzalez organizes a class project among freshmen at Arvin High taking a dual enrollment course through Bakersfield College.
Credit: Emma Gallegos/EdSource
A new report delivers bad and good news for the Central Valley.
The bad news: The vast majority of parents, 79%, want their children to get a bachelor’s degree, but just 26% of students in the region are on pace to achieve that.
The good news: Central Valley educators in both K-12 and higher education are pioneering strategies that could transform the region’s low college attainment rates. That includes broadly expanding dual enrollment opportunities; increasingthe number of students meeting requirements to graduate from high school; and creating regional partnerships to smooth key transitions between high school, community college and four-year universities.
A sweeping new report, “Pathways to College Completion in the San Joaquin Valley,” by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) found a multitude of factors contributing to lower college attainment rate in the region, compared to the rest of the state, including a lack of preparation in high school, low university application rates (especially to the UC system), financial constraints, campus proximity, and a perception of less access. That’s a problem for the state, as well as the region.
“When we look to the state’s future, the San Joaquin Valley is especially important,” said Hans Johnson, one of the report’s authors.
That’s because the Central Valley is populous, young and growing rapidly — 4 million and counting — compared with other parts of the state. But it is also a region that requires attention, because, over the last 50 years, it has fallen behind the rest of the state economically. In 1974, residents in the Central Valley made 90% of the state’s per capita income. In 2020, that number had fallen to 68%.
“When you increase the educational attainment rate here in the Central Valley, it lifts the entire region socioeconomically and culturally as well,” said Benjamin Duran, executive director of the Central Valley Higher Education Consortium.
He said that too few students obtaining any kind of degree — associate, bachelor’s or advanced — means the valley will continue to have too few people in critical professions, such as nursing, medicine and teaching.
“It’s way below what our economy in general demands,” said Johnson, a senior fellow with PPIC. “We know the value of a college degree statewide is incredibly strong — and in the Valley as well. So, not everybody has to go (to college), but more people and more students should be going than are going right now.”
The report finds that students in the Central Valley tend to graduate from high school at nearly the same rate as other students in the state, but show a sharp decline during the critical juncture of transitioning from high school to college and, for students who register at community colleges, which a majority of Valley college students do, transferring to a four-year university or college.
High school students lack preparation
According to the PPIC report, students in the Valley have wildly different experiences based simply on which school districts they attend.
“That’s both encouraging and kind of discouraging that we have such a wide variation that where you go to school, to not a small extent, is going to determine what kind of possibilities you have for going on to college,” Johnson said.
School districts that do a good job preparing socioeconomically disadvantaged students tend to also prepare their wealthier peers well, the report shows.
Two of the Valley’s largest districts, for example, demonstrate this. The college-going rate for Fresno Unified’s socioeconomically disadvantaged students is 64%, compared with 67% of their more advantaged peers. Those same rates for the Kern High School District are 48% and 53% respectively.
The problem is that many Central Valley students are not graduating from high school with the preparation that they need to succeed in college, according to Olga Rodriguez, one of the report’s authors.
One important metric is how many students have taken the full college preparatory sequence — known as A-G — required for admission to California’s public universities. In the Central Valley, 4 out of 10 high school graduates met the A-G requirements, compared with 6 out of 10 for Los Angeles and Bay Area students.
“If you want to increase the number of college graduates, that’s where we have so much potential,” said Rodriguez, director of the PPIC Higher Education Center.
Students who do not meet A-G requirements are not able to begin their college career at a CSU or UC school. Additionally, this lack of preparation makes it more challenging for students at community colleges to successfully transfer to a four-year university, Rodriguez said.
To improve their rates, some school districts have shifted to mandating that students graduate with A-G requirements; others have simply dropped classes that are not A-G eligible. However, many other districts are not prioritizing A-G classes.
“A-G policies often seemed centered on politics and local industry needs — as opposed to being focused on students’ needs and aspirations,” the report states.
An analysis by EdSource found that 56% of high school seniors do not complete the A-G requirements. EdSource found that the problem is particularly dire among Black and Latino students, as well as in certain regions, such as Northern California and the Central Valley.
For many communities in the Central Valley, higher education is considered more “aspirational” than realistic, Duran said, adding that it’s the job of all educators across the spectrum to educate both students and parents about how to make college a reality.
The default choice for many Central Valley students is to stay at home and attend a local community college, rather than attend a CSU or UC — even for students who have the grades. The perception is that it ends up being cheaper and maybe a safer option, but that’s not always the case.
“When you look at the net price, it’s actually more affordable to go to a CSU than it is to stay at a community college,” said Rodriguez. “Especially when you think about the likelihood of completion and how long it’s going to take you.”
Partnerships make the difference
Because the transitions between institutions is where students tend to fail, the report says that partnerships between high schools, community colleges, CSU campuses and the region’s only UC campus, in Merced, are important for Central Valley students.
In this area, the region is “ahead of the game,” said Rodriguez.
The Associate Degree for Transfer (ADT) is a program that guarantees community college students who meet certain requirements a spot at a CSU campus, but the UC system has not joined in. However, UC Merced — the only UC in the Central Valley — is unique in having its own version of an ADT guarantee for regional community colleges, Johnson notes. The university also has a similar guarantee program aimed at high school students in regional districts.
There are similar partnerships throughout the Valley that are trying to ease those transitions. For instance, Fresno State has a new Bulldog Bound Program that guarantees admission to high school students in over 40 school districts who meet requirements — and also gives them support during their high school career.
The region has three K-16 collaboratives that focus on making sure that schools are able to prepare students for college at a young age — whether that is through educating parents or helping high school teachers, particularly in English and math, get master’s degrees so they can teach dual enrollment courses.
Dual enrollment has thrived in the Central Valley, thanks to partnerships largely between community colleges and K-12 schools in the region. Dual enrollment allows students to take college credit courses during high school, which makes them more likely to continue on to college after high school.
The work being done in the Central Valley serves as an incubator for what can happen in the rest of the state, said Duran.
“The work we do is collaborative,” said Duran. “We try to bring projects and initiatives that can not only be replicated here, but in the rest of the state.”
If these changes lead to a swell of enrollment, the report notes that there is plenty of higher education infrastructure in the region. Few colleges or universities have programs that are impacted — unlike in other parts of the state. Both CSU and UC are banking on growth in this region.
Cal Poly Pomona students host a voter registration table.
Credit: Courtesy of ASI, Cal Poly Pomona
Every Monday for the past few weeks, Cal Poly Pomona student Melvyn Hernandez has been manning a table outside the Bronco Student Center to register fellow students to vote. He comes prepared with snacks, prizes and a quiz testing students’ election year know-how.
“When it comes to things like Super Tuesday, or what a swing state is, or even who the major candidates are for the elections, a lot of students don’t really have the time to be aware of that,” said Hernandez, an architecture major. “A lot of students — even with how publicized the different debates and everything are– they’re too busy to be following it.”
Hernandez and volunteers across California’s colleges and universities are trying to add something important to the endless to-do list of the typical college student this fall: A crash course in Elections 101. In a year when barriers to students voting in states like North Carolina and Arizona have made headlines, California students are getting out the word about key election deadlines and directing their peers to nearby polling places. They’re also raising awareness about down-ballot conteststhat directly affectstudents’ lives — such as a proposed minimum wage increase — but which could get lost in the noise of a contentious presidential race.
Students and administrators involved in nonpartisan voter-turnout efforts at California State University campuses said their task this election cycle is to provide reliable information to a population that’s simultaneously pressed for time and overwhelmed by the volume of biased political messages. Students said another challenge is to galvanize potential voters disappointed by their options in the presidential race — and perhaps turned off from voting altogether.
“That’s the point of why we’re here,” Hernandez tells students if they’re embarrassed to admit they don’t know much about nominees and ballot measures. “So that you are aware and you can go ahead and further pursue finding out more about the candidates.”
Similar efforts are underway at many University of California (UC) campuses, community colleges and private schools.
Youth voter turnout has historically lagged the rates among older voters. But recent elections have seen larger shares of young voters. The Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) at Tufts University estimates that 50% of voters age 18 to 29 voted in the 2020 election, up 11 points from 2016. That rate still trailed voter participation among older voters, though; 69% of voters 35 to 64 and 74% of voters 65 and older turned out in 2020.
A recognition that colleges should play a role in supporting young voters is part of the impetus behind the California Secretary of State’s California University and College Ballot Bowl Competition, a program that seeks to harness intercollegiate rivalry to encourage voter registration.
Going Deeper
You can look up the nearest polling place to you, including those on or near University of California and California Community College campuses, here. A list of early voting and vote-by-mail drop-off locations is here.
On-campus voting locations are another way to ease what could be students’ first time filling out a ballot. This year, for example, all Cal State campuses are home to one or more ballot drop-off locations, and many also serve as vote centers.
College students attending school outside their home county or state usually have a choice of where to register to vote.In California, students can register in the county where they’ve relocated for school or in the home county where their family lives.
Jackie Wu, a former Orange County election official who has worked with Cal State Fullerton on civic engagement, said that university administrators shouldn’t settle for low voter participation on campus just as they wouldn’t pass up a chance to increase slumping graduation rates.
College “is our last opportunity, in a structured system, to encourage voting and civic participation,” she said.
Offering students ‘little hints and pebbles’
Striking the right tone in an election awareness campaign can be a delicate balance for college administrators and student volunteers.
They’ve got to educate low-information would-be voters — the students who don’t know the answers to Hernandez’s questionnaire. Yet, they have to be mindful that omnipresent political advertising can leave studentsunsure of what to believe.And, of course, universities have tooffer fastidiously nonpartisan messages, even in a polarized political climate saturated with sensationalist campaigning in the mad dash before Election Day.
“There’s so much pressure put on everyone. You know, ‘The election is really important. Make sure you turn out to vote. The future depends on it,” said Wu. “A lot of times (students) may not feel like they know where to ask for help and who they can go to for help that isn’t trying to pressure them to vote a certain way.”
The solution: Lots of voter education events and some casual nudges.
Besides voter registration booths, Cal State students this fall have helped organizepanels about ballot propositions and forums where students can mingle with candidates for local office. Cal State Fullerton student government even had a table at the weekly on-campus farmer’s market to register voters, Wu said.
A custom coffee sleeve distributed at Cal Poly Pomona ahead of the 2024 election reminds students to vote.Credit: Courtesy of Cal Poly Pomona
Small reminders help, too. Jeanne Tran-Martin, Cal State’s interim director of student affairs programs, said some schools encourage students to confirm whether they are registered to vote by placing a link in their online student dashboards. This year, Cal Poly Pomona ordered custom coffee cup sleeves with a QR code linking to TurboVote, a website where students can register to vote.
“We’re not trying to get in anyone’s face and saying, ‘This is so important. Why aren’t you doing this?’” said Michelle Ellis Viorato, the campus’s civic and voter empowerment coordinator. “We’re just trying to drop little hints and pebbles to get people to think about, ‘Oh right, this is coming up. I need to remember to do this.’”
The low-key messaging could help Cal Poly Pomona to reach this fall’s voter turnout goal of 72%. That would be a slight increase from the school’s 70% voting rate in the last presidential election, according to a report by Tufts University’s Institute for Democracy & Higher Education, which estimates voter participation by merging student records and voting files. (You can look up the voter turnout records of selected other campuses here.)
For students already registered, breaking down the steps to cast a ballot can help to relieve some election-season jitters.
At Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, where about 94%of students were from outside the county and roughly 15% were from outside California as of last fall, voter registration volunteers have been fielding lots of questions about when and where students can find their ballots.
Tanner Schinderle, the secretary of executive staff at Associated Students, the school’s student government, said volunteers help students to think through their options, like getting absentee ballots, asking a parent to mail them their ballot or registering in San Luis Obispo County.
Encouraging students to ‘look down your ballot’
Voter registration has been a sprint at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, which kicked off the fall term on Sept. 16, a late start compared with universities that operate on semesters rather than quarters.
Associated Students has averaged two to three voter registration drives per week, Schinderle estimates, thanks to more than 80 students trained on the process. Those students have been running a voter registration booth in the University Union Plaza. Volunteers also knocked on the doors of virtually every first-year student living on campus, Schinderle said, offering voter registration help.
The overall reaction has been positive, he added. But several students interviewed for this story said they’ve encountered peers frustrated with national politics.
“There’s a common attitude of, ‘Pick the lesser of two evils,’” said Cade Wheeler, a mechanical engineering student who is Cal Poly Pomona’s student body president.
Alejandra Lopez Sanchez, who serves as secretary of external affairs at Cal Poly Pomona Associated Students, said a few of the students she met at an on-campus voter outreach event in October remarked they weren’t sure if they would vote in this election.
“Especially for the presidential candidates, they’re like, ‘Who am I supposed to vote for if I don’t like either of them?’” she said.
But voters who look past the race for the presidency will find statewide contests that could make a concrete difference in students’ lives. Proposition 2, for example, would authorize a $10 billion state construction bond for TK-12 schools and community colleges. And for students working minimum wage jobs, Proposition 32 would set higher wage floors.
Speakers from the Rose Institute for State and Local Government at Claremont McKenna College share a presentation about ballot measures at a university housing complex at Cal Poly Pomona.Courtesy of Cal Poly Pomona
Weston Patrick, the secretary of external affairs at the Cal Poly San Luis Obispo’s Associated Students, finds the best tactic is to refocus students on local races in San Luis Obispo that influence public transit systems, housing and other areas important to students.
“That was kind of a guiding principle, telling students, ‘Hey, if you’re not feeling thrilled about your choices at the top of the ballot’ — which we certainly did get some of that sentiment from some students — ‘look down your ballot,’” he said.
That’s why Patrick was excited to see students strike up conversations with candidates for San Luis Obispo City Council at an event Associated Students hosted on campus. (It probably didn’t hurt that students could grab a free doughnut if they talked to one or more candidates.)
IeseEsera, president of the systemwideCal State Student Association, said he hopes strong campus voter turnout will influence legislators shaping legislation relevant to students, like how much the state invests in higher education.
“We are tax-paying citizens who also pay tuition, for example, who also have to afford the same cost of living that you do and that our parents do,” Esera said.
Weighing the election’s impact on jobs and cost of living
Students said their peers are most concernedabout how the election could impact students’ tuition, cost of living and career outlook.
“In my generation, a lot of us talk about how expensive everything is, especially in California,” said Megan Shadrick, Cal Poly Pomona Associated Students vice president. “It can be pretty discouraging as we’re trying to move forward into our careers.”
Efforts to make voting easier could benefit students who are short on time because they’re working multiple jobs or managing a long commute.
One thing to know is that California voters can mail their ballots, drop them at any ballot box or deliver them to any polling place in the state. Similarly, Tran-Martin likes to remind students who plan to vote in person that if you are waiting in line to vote when the polls close at 8 p.m., you will still get to cast your ballot.
And when all else fails, a little positive peer pressure can help.
Bahar Ahmadi, a student studying environmental engineering at Cal Poly Pomona, volunteered at an election fair held on Oct. 10. Reached about a week later,Ahmadi, a first-time voter, said she might joina group of friends for moral support as they drop off ballots together.
“I feel like the first time doing it might feel intimidating alone,” she said.
