I was sitting here thinking, with all the colleges sending everyone home, is 2020 the year NH has fair elections again? It will be interesting to see voter counts.
Interesting question – especially if this lasts through to the fall semester. In fact, a whole lot of questions arise.
It is clear that the formerly monolithic Prussian born warehouse education model is under attack by this virus birthed Black Swan event. With NH’s rapidly evolving Remote Learning system for pre-K -12 with public schools closed, and both public and private colleges/universities emptying out their dorms and sending kids home for the rest of the semester, will the importance of a zip-code based building learning environment have some cracks in it? MIGHT some of this remote/tele-education/homeschooling stick even after things return to normal?
That was my observation, but Mike R’s may be of even more importance electorally! With enrollments falling, and campuses and staff expensive to maintain, let’s face it, gross margins are going to go up. Kids being sent home means fewer expenses in providing their product to consumers.
Sure, it’s the Ivory Tower but it is also a business that has to make money (just ask Bernie Sander’s wife what happens when you run out of other peoples’ money in running a college). And given how much the current college cohort are digiterati, and how much is being done online anyway, it may be a large trend that the Wuhan Flu (or as Steve wrote, the Kung Flu) may very well widen.
Which means more kids of voting age just staying home and ending up with the same degree from a NH based college (can you call it a NH based college, for example, if all of the servers providing that online coursework are floating around in Google’s or Amazon’s clouds?). Which means they stay in their parents’ towns sucking up their bandwidth instead of junking up our elections.
No need for arguing about same-day registration, the definition of domicile vs residency vs intent vs State resident responsibilities. All gone – made irrelevant by having a non-physical presence here in the Live Free or Die State. No more swamping of town, county, or state vote totals by colleges and university student populations.
Can’t do it if they ain’t here in the first place. And just THINK of the $$$ parents will save by not having to pay student fees, dorm/apartment rents, and food programs?
No, not all students will take advantage of distance learning but if even a large minority takes up what may well become more popular because of familiarity, well, good.
(H/T: Mike R)