CUYAHOGA FALLS: A high school student’s joke has evolved into a concerted effort to get presidential candidates to take teenagers seriously.
It began as a simple class project. Find a problem and solve it, said marketing teacher Craig Wargowsky.
Wargowsky settled on how to pay for a yearly trip to New York City, where his students visit marketing firms and learn from professionals. The April trip costs $450 per student and will take them near Trump Tower on the second day.
Instead of selling T-shirts and candy bars, Wargowsky asked his 51 marketing students to develop a product, or an idea, to pay for the trip.
“Let’s fight Donald Trump. Let’s challenge him to a fight,” Alex Strader, 17, jokingly told Wargowsky.
The teacher dismissed the idea as impractical, let alone illegal. But he couldn’t shake the marketing potential of tempting a billionaire real estate mogul commanding national media attention at the front of a crowded field of Republican presidential hopefuls.
By the afternoon, he saw Strader’s provocation in a new light.
The class toned down the language and forged an idea. Instead of fighting, they would challenge any presidential candidate to sit down and listen to the concerns of the 30 million disenfranchised 18- to 24-year-olds who say they don’t vote because no one cares if they do.
“I think it’s to bring light to the fact that teenagers care,” Strader said.
Yeah, the student added, people may see his generation as “careless, reckless … or maybe privileged,” but that doesn’t mean they’re any less concerned about their futures.
Social Security and immigration may suck the oxygen out of debates. “But that’s not our immediate concerns,” Strader said. “It’s am I going to have a job when I graduate college with student loan debt.”
Kickstart the convo
Wargowsky’s three marketing classes have banded together to get any presidential candidate to hear them out.
The students are busy this week contacting local and national newspapers, broadcast news stations, elected officials and business leaders — basically anyone with clout.
The goal isn’t to ask for money. They’ve launched a Kickstarter campaign for that. For now, they just want to start a conversation so large that it cannot be ignored.
“This could be more than just raising money. It could raise awareness. It could change the way the nation views this generation,” Wargowsky said, admiring his students’ motivation and optimism.
The students are soliciting $40,000 through Kickstarter, an online fundraising forum that keeps about 5 percent of donations. About $18,000 would cover travel expenses. The rest, about $20,000, would help produce and broadcast a sit-down conversation with a candidate, should any candidate step up to the challenge.
“We are open to all candidates,” Wargowsky said, “Democrat or Republican”.
“Trump just happens to live in the city we are visiting. If Gov. [John] Kasich wants to ride to New York with us, we have an open seat on the bus,” the teacher said.
College
Wargowsky has awoken in his students a realization that they carry a disproportionate and untapped power in politics.
If every recent high school graduate voted, the drinking age might be lower, Wargowsky told his students, as an example. The idea intrigued some. They dived deeper into the demographics that define their generation.
At the tail end of the millennial generation there are more than 30 million 18- to 24-year-olds in America, among the most populous chunk of the American electorate. Politicians can overlook them, though, because few of them vote. And they don’t vote, they said, because they are overlooked.
“I don’t think a lot of 18-year-olds care,” said Mackenzie Koehler, 17.
Their concerns over America entering another war or whether gas prices will rebound are squashed by political hyperbole over building an insurmountable wall along the Mexican border, and making Mexico pay for it.
They figure Social Security, though a noble cause, will cost the most and provide the least for their generation, which will enter retirement in 30 or 40 years.
Their concerns, rather, are more pressing, like how will they pay for college next year.
“You pay for a lot more than you ask for,” said Ashley Wilkins, 18, who is well aware of student loan interest rates. “And now, it’s not even guaranteed that you’ll get a job.”
But that’s the paradox of the teenager. They’re told to go to college. The job market demands nothing less than a well-educated workforce.
“You feel obligated to go to college because you can’t work a part-time job forever,” said Wilkins, who serves tables at Denny’s and recently took a second job at a tanning salon.
In her spare time, Wilkins takes economics, statistics and literary courses at the University of Akron. Her high school pays the tuition. Next year, though, she’ll join the 41 million Americans who owe $1.3 trillion to private and public student loan lenders.
Today, Wilkins is among the 96 percent of Americans who say it’s important to have more than a high school diploma and the 79 percent who say a college education is not affordable for all who need it, according to a Gallup-Lumina Foundation Poll. Three Republican presidential debates have been held since the poll results were released in April. A fourth was held Tuesday night.
“Is there a reason why you haven’t hit any points about the younger generation?” Chance Clegg, 17, would like to ask a candidate.
Clegg also works two jobs and expects to take out student loans next year.
Doug Livingston can be reached at 330-996-3792 or dlivingston@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow on Twitter: @DougLivingstonABJ.