Tuesday, March 19, 2024

VIDEO: Bernie Sanders' message resonates with students

July 30, 2015

The 73-year-old Democratic presidential candidate might be decades older than these college students, but his messages and what he stands for has hit a chord.

“I feel like students just feel a disconnect typically between politicians and ourselves," political theory and constitutional democracy senior Andrew Brewster said. "It seems like they’re kind of out of touch with what we want in the world and Bernie, even though he’s old, he cares about the same things that we care about."

Seth Zundel, an alumnus and Bernie Sanders’ supporter who hosted a campaign kickoff event Wednesday at New Community Co-op that featured a live stream address from the candidate, said he thinks younger voters have responded so well to Sanders because he acts like a normal person and is not afraid of the tough issues.

"I think he speaks our language, unlike any other candidate," Zundel said. "Every other candidate speaks politically, they avoid tough issues, taking stands, even on something as obvious as racism or the income inequality all the other politicians almost refuse to directly address these kinds of things."

"He is quite literally the anti-politician — his looks, his rhetoric, what he says," Zundel said.

Biochemistry and molecular biology junior Steven Lott said one reason he thinks so many students are attracted to Sanders is that they are not happy with the way things are going in America.

“College students are always some of the people who are attracted to the revolutionary, the new ideas,” Lott said. "But especially in this day and age I feel like the younger generation are not very satisfied with the way things are going, and people are kind of hopeless in the sense of jobs and their futures with debt."

Social relations and policy junior Justin Schofield said he thinks a big reason students are being drawn to the Bernie Sanders campaign is Sanders’ talk about making college tuition free at public universities.

“A lot of students leave in debt, and like thousands of dollars of debt, and he really wants to help those college students, really put some backbone behind them so they’re not in all this debt when they start in the workforce,” Schofield said.

According to The College Board, the average price of tuition for a 4-year public university in the U.S. last year was $9,139 for in-state students and $22,958 for out-of-state students.

On average 46 percent of MSU student graduated in 2013 left college with some kind of debt, according to The Institute for College Access and Success. The average debt for that 46 percent of the 2013 graduating class was $25,821.

Although some are critical of Sanders’ plan for free public college, others believe that it can work based on its success in other countries, such as Denmark and Sweden.

“You know, as they phase it in there might be an adjustment period, but I’m sure that Bernie has great people on his staff — they’re gonna be thinking of the in’s and out’s of how it will be transitioned into America,” Brewster said. "I think it’s a great opportunity, even if it starts out small with free community college, or something along those lines. It has such great potential for our country to really help us out."

Support student media! Please consider donating to The State News and help fund the future of journalism.

Discussion

Share and discuss “VIDEO: Bernie Sanders' message resonates with students” on social media.