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College costs and access are an essential issue...right next to climate change for the future...
Speaking to young voters about issues that are or very soon will impact their lives is crucial to motivating turn out. Young people have GOT to care now because it is abundantly clear the older generations will do absolutely nothing about issues that will have their greatest impact after the expected mortality age of themselves.
People LOVE to say they care about children and grandchildren, but when the time comes to vote for a candidate that says their top priority would be cutting fossil fuel use and emissions and that such things would require changes to the way we currently operate, suddenly the commitment to the future dries up and becomes ash in their mouths...
Stay focused on the 3 essential issues of the day (IMO):
1) Healthcare reform and expanding access to care for ALL Americans
2) Education and workforce training reform - college available to the qualified and desirous, community college for those who may need more time deciding, training and trades for those less inclined to chase post-HS degrees. An advanced society recognizes the mutual benefit of having an educated populace and strives to make it a top priority...failing dictatorships demonize the educated and try to break down support for public education assistance.
Our economy no longer offers a viable career path to uneducated, non-skilled employees...corporations do not have a 50+year commitment to their workers or communities and to pretend otherwise is disingenuous and harmful. Transformation is always painful and always with us, but the way to prosper from it is just as omnipresent...making our own workers and citizens more prepared to fill the needs of the economy instead of only ensuring they are just smart enough to consume and just stupid enough to not realize why...
3) Climate Change Action - the Green New Deal is a start...NOT an end! WE are facing existential crises ALREADY - food chain collapse (insects and plankton extinctions) is started NOW. Temperatures in Anchorage were some 20-30 degrees ABOVE historical normal this year. Glaciers are disappearing, sea ice is thinner and less resilient than ever. Weather patterns are shifting in dangerous and unpredictable ways. Crop losses and soil viability are on a precipice. These things do not care if you "believe" in them or not, they are happening and they are NOT slowing down or stopping. This nation SHOULD have been on a war footing against fossil fuel dependency since 9/12/2001 instead of a war footing against Islam.
Climate change policy IS national security policy. Saudi assholes killing journalists using US trained operatives and getting away with it to preserve access to oil fields is insanity. A full shift in power generation, storage and consumption is an absolute necessity, but the best part is that for a nation in need of a new industry to create and maintain jobs that can provide a high standard of living and cannot be outsourced - focusing on power grid, power lines, installations of solar and wind capability and more...THAT should have been in full swing since 2008 (or really a LOT sooner)...but the opportunity is still there.
50 years ago, building cars for GM was a lucrative and viable career and the cars changed the nation and our expectations and lifestyles to boot...NOW, the new industry for the next 50+ years needs to be clean energy production, electrical grid optimization, capacity storage (local batteries and loops) and transmission (moving solar and wind energy to where they are needed from where they are abundant). These things need to be designed by scientists, prototyped and perfected by engineers, built by laborers, moved by transportation personnel and installed by technicians and professionals. At every level along that path, professionals in sales and management and project completion are needed...
Yes, the future is scary, but it doesn't get less so by pretending we can go backwards to move ahead...