De Anza College students took part in a study that found an increase in voting among college students from 2012-2016.

Between the two national elections, student voter participation increased from 45.1 percent to 48.3 percent as represented in the study.

The impact of young voters is rising in the U.S.

Conducted by the National Study of Learning, Voting and Engagement (NSLVE) almost 10,000 students from over 1,000 institutions across all 50 states were used to evaluate how students of different characteristics and demographics vote.

Another study published on civicyouth.org found that about 24 million youth between ages 18-29, or 50 percent of eligible young people, voted in the 2016 general election with 55 percent of them voting for Hillary Clinton and 37 percent voting for Donald Trump.

Beyond voting, one of the easiest ways to get involved in De Anza’s political community would be liking pages on Facebook like De Anza’s Political Revolution to connect with other students.

The club works towards progressive change in local politics.

Club president and event coordinator, Eddie Cisneros, 23, anthropology major said, “Considering they make up 31 percent of eligible voters, young people really need to understand that they hold power in their votes.”

Especially in local elections when a decision could be made by a few thousand votes, new voters can make the difference.

Introductory political science classes offered at De Anza can meet general education requirements and help students first engage in political activity as well.

Critical thinking and group work experience along with real world political analysis can be a benefit.

While there is an increasing amount of young people voting, their majority preference in 2016 lost the election. Campus-wide civic engagement is key to rising student voter participation.

Their study found students in wealthier, more affluent areas have the greatest participation, but that voter turnout among minority groups is increasing.

The NSLVE concluded saying, “We hypothesize that pervasive political discussions, strong faculty-student relationships coupled with political learning across disciplines, and vibrant electoral activities are attributes of a robust campus climate for political engagement.”