Politically active students to change world

As college students, we have an increasingly important role in changing the political landscape.

We tend to be more inclined and motivated to get involved in political causes and issues or engage in some form of activism on college campuses and elsewhere.

Focus on the role and impact students have in the political world resulted in attempts to capitalize on this.

We saw it during the last presidential election. Candidates vyed to attract the support of college students in what many organizers saw as an untapped area of potential voters. The overwhelming growth in real grassroots support for certain candidates such as Rep. Ron Paul stemmed from the particular efforts of college students across the nation.
Much of the success of President Barack Obama’s campaign was found in its ability to motivate the youth and attract the votes of young college-age Americans, which became a significant base for his campaign.

Fifty-two percent of voters between the ages of 18 and 29 participated in the 2008 presidential election, an increase of nearly 3.4 million voters from the last presidential election in 2004, according to a report by the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement.

It’s important that, in a world where issues are becoming more complex, students take a more active part in politics and engage in political activism. Having a more vested interest in politics is key because we are the ones who will inherit a country swamped with a faltering economy, needless wars, expanding government and an entire laundry list of other difficult issues.

Getting college students motivated enough to change the direction Washington is taking us is the work of one political organization known as the Young Americans for Liberty.

As a national organization, YAL connects college students by networking and through the creation of local college chapters. Since it’s founding in 2008, YAL has established 176 chapters in colleges and high schools throughout the country, with more being added every day.

And if the hopes of some students at UC come true, our university will be the latest school to host a YAL chapter.

Currently awaiting the process of official recognition by the university, the UC chapter of YAL is looking to bring like-minded, liberty-loving students together in an effort to curb political apathy.

“Our goals as Young Americans for Liberty is to promote and defend the great American principles of individual liberty, constitutional government, free markets, sound money and a non-interventionist foreign policy through means of educational and political action,” Vice President of YAL at UC Ryan Printy said. “We hope to do this here at the University of Cincinnati by curing the apathy of some students and perhaps re-educating some informed students about the principles of liberty.”

In order to correct the mistakes made by those in Washington, we must be willing to take on the task by becoming more aware of the challenges we face.

“It is important for college students to be politically active because we live in turbulent times. The future of our country is looking bleak and we are going to have to be the ones to try and fix it. It is important for students to wake up and realize our country is moving down an unsustainable path,” Printy said. “The problems this country will face will be the problems our generation must fix, so it is important to start now [rather] than to wait before it is too late.”

And while we do have a number of political groups on campus, there is a significant lack in involvement by students.

“In terms of just our university here at UC, I feel student involvement could be much greater than it is,” Printy said. “We are a huge school but student involvement doesn’t show that at all. Not only should there be more political involvement of students, but just student involvement in general.”

We are in school because we want to make our future the best it can be, but unless we make an effort to get involved politically and change the way things are going, it may not be much of a future to have.