College students tend to vote at a lower rate than other demographics of Americans. According to the Institute for Democracy and Higher Education, just 48% of college students voted in the 2016 election, lower than the national average of 61%. How do UC Berkeley students fare in terms of voting rates? In this piece, we compare UC Berkeley students by discipline and across UC campuses.
Who votes in the UC system?
Below, we compare the voting and registration rates of different UC campuses. Both graduate and undergraduate students are included.
UC Berkeley ranks about fourth out of all UC campuses.
Which majors vote?
Students vary in their civic engagement by major. We plotted the voting rates in the 2016 and 2018 elections by discipline at UC Berkeley. Note that the lines are not shown by specific major, but by topic groupings.
Public administration and social service students are at the top, voting significantly in both midterm and national elections. From the data, the discipline least likely to vote in a national election was mathematics and statistics.