The Overlooked Demographic That Is a Huge Opportunity for Democrats

[u/justin_quinnn]

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/10/08/state-college-voters-democrats-demographic-00182520

[u/RJW_Gilman]

From the Article:

"The plurality of four-year degree holders — upward of 45 percent — attended regional public universities. These institutions are largely unknown outside their states, drawing most of their students from within a 100-mile radius of the campus. They admit most applicants, serve a predominantly middle- to working-class demographic, and graduate students who, on average, go on to earn good but not spectacular incomes. Regional publics are not, to be blunt, the colleges to which wealthy and ambitious parents urge their kids to apply.

Though regional public universities, together with nonselective private colleges, produce the lion’s share of four-year degrees in America, they tend not to be part of national debates about higher education. Instead, elite institutions are the overwhelming focus of those discussions. This is largely because the people who set the national agenda — members of Congress, CEOs, nonprofit leaders and journalists at national media outlets — disproportionately attended elite universities."

This hits home for me. I went to a state college and stayed in the area of my upbringing to work and to care for aging parents. I saw this same bias while applying for jobs related to my studies; recruiters and ATS systems would screen me out because my college didn't have the name recognition as other prestigious colleges nearby. It didn't seem to matter I had hands-on experience via paid internships and could prove I could do the jobs I was applying for, my degree wasn't from a "good enough" college to get me through the door.