Politicians and pundits always say the youth doesn't vote, you can't rely on them, when it comes down to it they won't actually vote. So for many of them it's easy to dismiss concerns and movements making their way through college campuses because they don't think they will face any real consequences come voting day.
Statistically, they have had low turnout as a historical standard and even in record turn out for that bloc, it is <20% of the electorate. The two next blocs (30-64 combo) make up >60% of the electorate. It also doesn't change very much per election cycle for the bloc in a vacuum, 2020 was estimated at around 55% but that is only 10% more than 2016 which was a record low. Young-before to now-30+ also have dropped in share of the total vote to 50-65/64+ voters.
It also isn't like young people only vote Democratic with monolithic views. Biden won them by a significant margin but not in the same way he won the AA vote, for example. It is also hard to make any specific claim of the youth vote turning a critical election, Taylor Swift tried to mobilize the youth in 2018 midterms for a Senate seat and that failed entirely. Bernie failed to win on "the youth vote" twice and the second time rather convincingly lost. Conversely, the AA vote is very clearly what won two seats in Georgia and the state as a whole for Biden. The two senators from Georgia have been pushing for things to benefit Georgia and the AA community as a whole, which Biden also works towards.
You then get genius level politics of people saying not to vote at all which... yes you no longer have a voice at any table, creating the above situation, proving the punditry and politicians correct.
Ironically, this may end up being one of the more engaged years for younger voters with college degrees because Biden has been directly helping their wallet with his policies. This has always been one of the main things to drive people out to vote and why Trump almost won in 2020 because he gave people money with his name on it.
