Despair over future fuels political anxiety for college students on the
cusp of adulthood
[October 05, 2026]
By JACQUELINE GANUN and NICHOLAS RICCARDI
EAST LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Frankie Llerandi, 21, has been unable to land
a single internship in his three years at Michigan State University.
He will graduate in the spring with an economics degree and an interest
in data analytics, but true adulthood seems maddeningly far away. Most
of his cousins have not been able to buy a house or start a family deep
into their 30s.
Kira Saiti, a 19-year-old sophomore, is more upset about the broader
world than her own future. Every time she looks at her phone she sees
images of violence and horror, both in the Middle East and closer to
home.
“It’s kind of hard to look at that and say, ‘This world is a great
place,’” she said.
Julian Bautista, 20, saw his chosen profession of environmental work
decimated by Trump administration cuts, pushing the junior to decide he
will leave the United States to find work in the Netherlands when he
graduates. He considers what remains his home country for the next 18
months to be a failure of democracy led by what he sees as corrupt
politicians.
“Throughout my life, we’ve either stagnated or declined, we haven’t
improved,” Bautista said.
For many of their classmates on campus and elsewhere around the country,
the present looks bleak and the future uncertain at best. Their anxiety
is fueling a restlessness with a national political system that they
worry is no longer capable of improving their lives or no longer
interested in helping.
Two years ago, grim economic vibes helped Donald Trump win a far larger
share of young voters than is typical for a Republican — 47%, according
to AP VoteCast, an extensive survey of the electorate. Now, anxiety
about artificial intelligence and the Iran war has been added to the
mix, powering a wave of disruptive candidates on the opposite end of the
political spectrum who have been embraced by college students.
Llerandi, Saiti and Bautista all support a slate of progressive,
antiestablishment Democratic candidates in Michigan who are pledging to
shake up the status quo. Among them are Abdul El-Sayed, a former public
health official running for U.S. Senate, and Will Lawrence, a liberal
activist trying to unseat Tom Barrett, the Republican congressman who
represents the swing district that includes the university.
The future looks bleak for many students
Anxieties about the job market, homeownership and adulthood are
widespread across the campus, even among those who are not deeply
involved in politics.
“It’s just something to laugh at, but, you know, I really do want a
house when I’m older,” said Praveen Amunugama, a 21-year-old
biochemistry major who plans to go to graduate school in hopes the job
market improves over the next two years.
His friends feel the same way.
“They want to be able to afford things, raise a good family,” he said.
Despite the economic angst among young people, at first blush the
picture does not look that bad for them. The unemployment rate for those
age 22 to 27 is 7.2%, higher than the broader rate of 4.1% but lower
than some other moments of economic calm.
A 2024 study found members of the younger generation known as Generation
Z are poised to be wealthier than millennials, who themselves are
wealthier than the prior generation despite the persistent sense of
economic doom that accompanied their entry into the job market during
the Great Recession.
Kevin Corinth, the economist who co-authored that study, said he
understands Gen Z angst, given modern uncertainties, especially the
prospect of AI reshaping various industries and data showing younger
people are taking longer to leave home and start families.
“For previous generations, if you took certain paths you were likely to
succeed, to do better than your parents,” said Corinth, who is at the
American Enterprise Institute, a center-right think tank. For young
people now, he acknowledged, that path is not as clear.
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Kathryn Edwards, a Texas-based economist, noted that unemployment
among recent college graduates is at 5.6%, higher than at most other
times in recent history other than the Great Recession. Combined
with historically high housing prices and rising costs for
essentials such as food and healthcare, that is a challenging
environment for young people.
“It's pretty bad for them,” Edwards said, adding that young people
are picking up on broader warning signs in the economy. “So many
aspects of our current economy, I think young people have gotten
right.”
They are also fully exposed to the new form of job hunting:
AI-powered, digital and done almost exclusively online, where it is
hard to discern real job openings from fake ones.
“Think about the amount they get spammed and scammed, and there are
tons of fake jobs out there,” said Marla McGraw, assistant dean of
career management in Michigan State's business school. “They’re
always coming in here going, ‘Is this real?’”
She spends a lot of time trying to buck up disenchanted students.
“Our message right now is the job market is tough, but you’re
tougher,” McGraw said.
Students say political leaders are falling short
Young Americans' optimism about the job market has plummeted since
2024 and the gap between their view of the economy and those of
their elders is greater than almost anywhere in the world, according
to a Gallup survey earlier this year.
They are less likely to be engaged in politics and less likely to
think it is important to vote, an Associated Press-NORC Center for
Public Affairs Research poll found. They also are less likely to be
concerned about political violence.
That dissolution of beliefs in traditional political values worries
Karlee VanAntwerp.
The 21-year-old Michigan State senior is also head of the local
chapter of Turning Point, the group for young conservatives whose
founder, Charlie Kirk, was assassinated last year. VanAntwerp has
been horrified to see Kirk's killing repeatedly, and sometimes
menacingly, mocked online.
“Gen Z tends to be more extreme with their views,” VanAntwerp said.
“It makes it hard to work with people of different political
beliefs, because even if you're in the middle, they assume you're
crazy.”
VanAntwerp sees that feeding into the despair many of her generation
feel about real change ever happening.
“One administration does a bunch of stuff, another administration
comes in and wipes it all out,” said VanAntwerp, who is also working
for Barrett's campaign. “It feels like we always go in circles. That
contributes to the political temperature being so high, because
people feel nothing changes.”
Her politics are the polar opposite of many liberal students who
gathered to hear Lawrence, Barrett's Democratic challenger, talk in
a classroom one recent evening, but there was a similar desire for
dramatic change. Lawrence sympathized with the glum feelings of
early adulthood and urged the students not to succumb to despair.
“When I was a little younger I wanted to drop out of society, and it
was organizing that gave me a path in life,” Lawrence said.
After the candidate left, however, Bautista still sounded on the
verge of despair. He talked about how online influencers he trusts
deride Democrats such as Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New
York as “mini-mes” because, Bautista contended, they are just
watered-down versions of Trump.
“Our leaders are representing us less,” Bautista said. “People are
desperate for big stuff.”
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