EAST LANSING, Mich. — Frankie Llerandi, 21, has been unable to land a single internship in his three years at Michigan State University. <\/p>\n
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<\/a> or start a family deep into their 30s.<\/p>\n 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. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s kind of hard to look at that and say, \u2018This world is a great place,\u2019\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Julian Bautista, 20, saw his chosen profession of environmental work<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n \u201cThroughout my life, we\u2019ve either stagnated or declined, we haven\u2019t improved,\u201d Bautista said.<\/p>\n 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. <\/p>\n Two years ago, grim economic vibes helped Donald Trump win a far larger share<\/a> of young voters than is typical for a Republican \u2014 47%, according to AP VoteCast, an extensive survey of the electorate. Now, anxiety about artificial intelligence<\/a> and the Iran war<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n 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>, a former public health official running for U.S. Senate, and Will Lawrence, a liberal activist<\/a> trying to unseat Tom Barrett, the Republican congressman who represents the swing district that includes the university.<\/p>\n Anxieties about the job market, homeownership and adulthood are widespread across the campus, even among those who are not deeply involved in politics.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s just something to laugh at, but, you know, I really do want a house when I\u2019m older,\u201d 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. <\/p>\n His friends feel the same way. <\/p>\n \u201cThey want to be able to afford things, raise a good family,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n \u201cFor previous generations, if you took certain paths you were likely to succeed, to do better than your parents,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n 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<\/a> and rising costs for essentials such as food<\/a> and healthcare, that is a challenging environment for young people.<\/p>\n \u201cIt’s pretty bad for them,\u201d Edwards said, adding that young people are picking up on broader warning signs in the economy. \u201cSo many aspects of our current economy, I think young people have gotten right.\u201d<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n \u201cThink about the amount they get spammed and scammed, and there are tons of fake jobs out there,\u201d said Marla McGraw, assistant dean of career management in Michigan State’s business school. \u201cThey\u2019re always coming in here going, \u2018Is this real?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n She spends a lot of time trying to buck up disenchanted students. <\/p>\n \u201cOur message right now is the job market is tough, but you\u2019re tougher,\u201d McGraw said.<\/p>\n Young Americans’ optimism about the job market has plummeted<\/a> 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. <\/p>\n They are less likely to be engaged in politics<\/a> 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<\/a>.<\/p>\n That dissolution of beliefs in traditional political values worries Karlee VanAntwerp. <\/p>\n