The process of voting while away at school includes many more hoops to jump through than simply going to your local polling place and checking some boxes:
"Not only do they (students) need information on how and where they can register to vote, but once they do register, they need information on how to cast a ballot. For students, they may be unaware about rules for voting absentee. If they choose to vote in their new college community, they may not know where their polling location is, whether they can vote early, or what ID, if any they need."
Students who are away from home need to acquire a lot of information in order to register to vote. You may be able to argue that the actual process of registering is relatively painless and thus should really not keep a student from voting. However, it is the sheer fact that a student has to go out and get the information that is stopping him or her from registering - the opportunity cost of getting the information is just too high. This makes perfect sense according to the concept of rational ignorance. As far as I am concerned (and I am obviously not alone because according to Robert Brandon's article less than 50% of eligible voters aged 18-24 actually vote) the cost of acquiring information about registering to vote does not outweigh the benefit of voting.
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While I agree that the marginal costs of voting outweigh the marginal benefits for many many potential college voters, I think the above argument is lacking much of the relevant story. Not only is the marginal cost of voting higher for college students while they are away from home, but, perhaps even more importantly, the perceived marginal benefit of voting may be lower for this group as well. What is important in one's voting decision is their perceived, rather than actual, benefits from voting, as they cannot be sure of their exact future benefits.
As we discussed in class, the perceived marginal benefit of voting is derived from the probability of one's vote counting and the perceived difference in value to the voter of the different possible future states of the country. There is no reason why the probability of a college student's vote counting should be any different from the rest of the population, but the perceived value to the college voter will likely be lower than it is for many others.
Putting the issue of rational ignorance aside, even college students who are informed may still not perceive a high marginal benefit of voting. Young college students are often somewhat removed, and somewhat less affected, by political issues than the rest of the population. For example, most college students do not have full time jobs and are therefore less impacted by changes in the tax rate, welfare reform, etc. As another example, because college students are young, they on average suffer from fewer health issues and are therefore less immediately affected by changes in healthcare policy. As a result, the difference in the value of the benefits offered by the candidates will likely be perceived by college students to be lower than by much of the rest of the country. Therefore, relative to the rest of the voting population, college students on average have a lower perceived marginal benefit to voting in addition to their increased marginal costs of voting and of acquiring information, as discussed above.
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