More than 40 million American adults have student loan debt and collectively owe approximately $1.8 trillion. Despite the societal importance of student loan debt, we know little about its consequences for electoral behavior. I address this oversight here by testing the relationship between student loan debt and participation in American national elections. I do so with pooled cross-sectional survey data from the 2016–2020 Cooperative Election Studies (CES). Net of various demographics, political interest, and campaign contact, I find that Americans with student loan debt are significantly more likely to vote and engage electorally than their counterparts without student loan debt. In short, student loan debt appears to spur political engagement, rather than withdrawal. I attribute these findings to the nature of student loan debt, relative to other types of financial burdens, specifically its connection to the federal government. Overall, these findings help to advance collective knowledge regarding the political consequences of student loan debt and help us to better understand how economic burdens shape mass politics.
AnsolabehereStephenRiversDouglas. 2013. “Cooperative Survey Research.” Annual Review of Political Science16: 307–329.
5.
BradyHenry E.VerbaSidneySchlozmanKay Lehman. 1995. “Beyond SES: A Resource Model of Political Participation.” American Political Science Review89 (2): 271–294.
6.
CampbellAndrea Louise. 2002. “Self-Interest, Social Security, and the Distinctive Participation Patterns of Senior Citizens.” American Political Science Review96 (3): 565–574.
7.
CampbellAndrea Louise. 2005. How Policies Make Citizens: Senior Political Activism and the American Welfare State. Princeton University Press.
8.
CancelaJoa˜oGeysBenny. 2016. “Explaining Voter Turnout: A Meta-Analysis of National and Subnational Elections.” Electoral Studies42: 264–275.
9.
CinelliCarlosHazlettChad. 2020. “Making Sense of Sensitivity: Extending Omitted Variable Bias.” Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series B: Statistical Methodology82 (1): 39–67.
Delli CarpiniMichael X.KeeterScott. 1997. What Americans Know about Politics and Why it Matters. Yale University Press.
12.
DwyerRachel E.2018. “Credit, Debt, and Inequality.” Annual Review of Sociology44: 237–261.
13.
FlavinPatrickRadcliffBenjamin. 2011. “Labor Union Membership and Voting Across Nations.” Electoral Studies30 (4): 633–641.
14.
FragaBernard L.2018. The Turnout Gap: Race, Ethnicity, and Political Inequality in a Diversifying America. Cambridge University Press.
15.
GerberAlan S.GreenDonald P.LarimerChristopher W.. 2008. “Social Pressure and Voter Turnout: Evidence from a Large-Scale Field Experiment.” American Political Science Review102 (1): 33–48.
16.
GreenDonald P.GerberAlan S.. 2005. “Recent Advances in the Science of Voter Mobilization.” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science601 (1): 6–9.
17.
GrossmannMattHopkinsDavid A.. 2024. Polarized by Degrees: How the Diploma Divide and the Culture War Transformed American Politics. Cambridge University Press.
HassellHans J. G.SettleJaime E.. 2017. “The Differential Effects of Stress on Voter Turnout.” Political Psychology38 (3): 533–550.
20.
JohnstonTravisO’ BrienErin. 2024. “Bad Lessons: Policy Feedback and the Democratic Costs of Student Loan Debt.” The Review of Higher Education; First View. doi:10.1353/rhe.0.a933011.
21.
KarpJeffrey A.BrockingtonDavid. 2005. “Social Desirability and Response Validity: A Comparative Analysis of Overreporting Voter Turnout in Five Countries.” Journal of Politics67 (3): 825–840.
22.
KerrisseyJasmineSchoferEvan. 2013. “Union Membership and Political Participation in the United States.” Social Forces91 (3): 427–464.
23.
LandwehrClaudiaOjedaChristopher. 2021. “Democracy and Depression: A Cross-National Study of Depressive Symptoms and Nonparticipation.” American Political Science Review115 (1): 323–330.
24.
LeighleyJan E.NaglerJonathan. 2014. Who Votes Now? Demographics, Issues, Inequality, and Turnout in the United States. Princeton University Press.
25.
LenzGabriel S.SahnAlexander. 2021. “Achieving Statistical Significance with Control Variables and without Transparency.” Political Analysis29 (3): 356–369.
26.
MargalitYotam. 2019. “Political Responses to Economic Shocks.” Annual Review of Political Science22: 277–295.
27.
MettlerSuzanne. 2011. The Submerged State: How Invisible Government Policies Undermine American Democracy. University of Chicago Press.
28.
MettlerSuzanne. 2014. Degrees of Inequality: How the Politics of Higher Education Sabotaged the American Dream. Basic Books.
29.
MillerJoanne M.PetersonDavid A. M.SaundersKyle L.McClurgScott D.. 2023. “Putting the Political in Political Interest: The Conditional Effect of Politics on Citizens’ Interest in Politics.” American Politics Research51 (4): 510–524.
30.
OjedaChristopher. 2018. “The Two Income-Participation Gaps.” American Journal of Political Science62 (4): 813–829.
31.
OjedaChristopherMichenerJamilaHaselswerdtJake. 2024. “The Politics of Personal Crisis: How Life Disruptions Shape Political Participation.” Political Behavior46 (4): 2611–2630.
32.
PutnamRobert D.2015. Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis. Simon & Schuster.
33.
RosenstoneSteven J.1982. “Economic Adversity and Voter Turnout.” American Journal of Political Science26 (1): 25–46.
34.
RosenstoneSteven J.HansenJohn Mark. 1993. Mobilization, Participation, and Democracy in America. Macmillan Publishing Company.
35.
SandersElizabeth. 1999. Roots of Reform: Farmers, Workers, and the American State, 1877-1917. University of Chicago Press.
36.
SchaubMax. 2021. “Acute Financial Hardship and Voter Turnout: Theory and Evidence from the Sequence of Bank Working Days.” American Political Science Review115 (4): 1258–1274.
37.
SchlozmanKay LehmanBradyHenry E.VerbaSidney. 2018. Unequal and Unrepresented: Political Inequality and the People’s Voice in the New Gilded Age. Princeton University Press.
38.
ShawDaron S.PetrocikJohn R.. 2020. The Turnout Myth: Voting Rates and Partisan Outcomes in American National Elections. Oxford University Press.
39.
ShawDaron R.AlthausScott L.PanagopoulosCostas. 2024. Battleground: Electoral College Strategies, Execution, and Impact in the Modern Era. Oxford University Press.
40.
SmetsKaatVan HamCarolien. 2013. “The Embarrassment of Riches? A Meta- Analysis of Individual-Level Research on Voter Turnout.” Electoral Studies32 (2): 344–359.
41.
SoRelleMallory E.LawsSerena. 2023. “The Political Benefits of Student Loan Debt Relief.” Research & Politics10 (2): 1–8.
42.
SoRelleMallory E.LawsSerena. 2024. “Deservingness and the Politics of Student Debt Relief.” Perspectives on Politics22 (2): 372–390.
43.
VerbaSidneyScholzmanKay LehmanBradyHenry E.. 1995. Voice and Equality: Civic Voluntarism in American Politics. Harvard University Press.
44.
WlezienChristopherSorokaStuart. 2021. “Trends in Public Support for Welfare Spending: How the Economy Matters.” British Journal of Political Science51 (1): 163–180.
45.
WolakJenniferPetersonDavid A. M.. 2020. “The Dynamic American Dream.” American Journal of Political Science64 (4): 968–981.
46.
ZingherJoshua N.2022. “TRENDS: Diploma Divide: Educational Attainment and the Realignment of the American Electorate.” Political Research Quarterly75 (2): 263–277.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
