NSLVE Frequently Asked Questions

The National Study of Learning, Voting, and Engagement [en-solve], is a free service to colleges and universities that provides student voting registration and turnout rates in national elections. NSLVE is the nation’s only objective study of college student voting and registration, and is used as an educational tool to inform institutions about their campus climate for civic engagement. 

Put simply, NSLVE data are the result of matching student enrollment records with public voting files to calculate student voting and registration rates by campus for each national election.

When an institution opts to participate in NSLVE, the Clearinghouse works with L2 to securely match enrollment records with public voting records through a matching algorithm. Public voting records indicate whether a person registered to vote and voted, not who they voted for. Once the records have been matched, the Clearinghouse de-identifies the records (meaning all names and information that would enable the identification of individual students is removed), and sends them to NSLVE. 

NSLVE researchers analyze the de-identified data and send a unique confidential report to each participating campus. Researchers also conduct additional analyses and release a public report with national data. This public report does not include data or identifiable information for any individual institutions or campus

Learn more about how we refined this process in 2020

NSLVE is a research project of the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE), a nonpartisan research center on youth civic education and engagement at Tufts University’s Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life. NSLVE launched at CIRCLE in 2013, was later conducted by the  Institute for Democracy and Higher Education (IDHE) while it was also housed at Tisch College, and returned to CIRCLE in 2024.

CIRCLE partners with the National Student Clearinghouse (“The Clearinghouse”) and L2 Political in order to collect the necessary data for the study. The Clearinghouse is a nonprofit organization established by the higher education community to provide educational reporting, verification, and research. Nearly all accredited, degree-granting U.S. colleges and universities send enrollment records to the Clearinghouse. L2 is a firm that compiles publicly available voter registration and turnout records.

Individual institutions (colleges and universities) opt into NSLVE by submitting an authorization form. This form gives written authorization to Clearinghouse to securely match its enrollment records with voter records from L2.

NSLVE provides data for even-year federal elections. We have collected data since the 2012 general election and counting. Our national reports from previous elections can be found here. 

Campuses use their reports in a variety of ways. Students, faculty, and administrators use the data to gauge student interest and engagement in democracy; to identify and close equity gaps in student voter participation; in classes as a teaching tool; in campus-wide discussions about engagement in democracy; for evaluation and accreditation processes, as outreach materials for student admissions processes, and to catalyze involvement by faculty members across academic disciplines.

We receive combined enrollment and voting records that have been de-identified, meaning they contain no names or any information that would enable us to identify any individual student.

NSLVE is not a survey, and institutions do not need to compile enrollment data for the study. NSLVE receives data directly from the Clearinghouse. 

NSLVE data handling and management have been reviewed and approved by the Tufts Office of Information Security to meet strict security and privacy controls. Data is stored in a cloud-based host that has been certified by an approved certification body to the ISO 27001 standard. The data is encrypted at rest and in transit using recognized encryption algorithms. Access to the data is limited to those with a need to know who are identified, authenticated, and whose access is specifically approved. NSLVE researchers never have access to individual student data that is not anonymized.

NSLVE uses de-identified records and was specifically designed to be in compliance with Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) requirements regarding directory information, the disclosure of information pursuant to the directory information exception, the disclosure of personally identifiable information under the studies’ exception, and the de-identified records’ provision of the Act. 

For more information visit our FERPA FAQ. 

NSLVE does not publish individual campus reports publicly. Campus reports are sent to designated individuals selected by institutions through the authorization process. Those individuals may publish or share their campus reports at their discretion. We never publish data that would disclose an individual campus’s student voting rate.  

No, NSLVE does not rank or compare individual colleges publicly. We do not organize, endorse, or directly participate in any competition or comparison challenges. 

NSLVE analyzes national data and publishes findings in a public national report (see the 2022 report here), scholarly research, and tailored cluster reports that can provide insights on particular groups of students or institutions. For more information on cluster reports, please email nslve@tufts.edu. 

Over 1,000 colleges and universities across the United States participate in NSLVE. These institutions include community colleges, minority-serving institutions, state universities, and more. 

Institutions must submit an authorization form to nslve@tufts.edu. This authorization form is an addendum to the institutional agreement with the Clearinghouse, to use the Institution’s enrollment data to participate in NSLVE. 

Forms must be signed by someone with signing authority: typically, the signatory for a campus is a President, Vice President, Dean of the college, Dean of Students, Provost, Registrar, or Institutional Research Director, but this is unique to each campus.

No. We rely on philanthropy to provide this service.

 Please email nslve@tufts.edu to see if your institution is participating in the study. 

We provide estimates of the rates at which students on a campus voted and registered, as well as the percentage of students who registered that actually voted (“yield rate”). We break those numbers down by age, field of study, class level, and, if your institution provides it to the Clearinghouse, race/ethnicity and gender. We also provide some specific voting information, such as voting methods, if available. We never provide or have access to data on who students voted for.

Reports can be expected anywhere between 12 to 14 months after a general election. The 2024 campus reports can be expected to be released in early 2026. 

The timeline for NSLVE reports relies on the availability of voting records that are certified and released by secretaries of state and enrollment data from the Clearinghouse and the National Center for Education Statistics. After these datasets become available, the data matching process can take anywhere from 6 to 8 months, and the NSLVE team needs additional time to analyze the data and prepare individual campus reports. 

When an institution submits an authorization form for NSLVE, they designate three recipients of the report: the president or chancellor, the office or director of institutional research or assessment, and an additional individual identified by the institution. If you are a faculty or staff member at an institution, try contacting the president’s or institutional researcher’s office to obtain a copy of your report. If they cannot locate the report, designated recipients can send an email to nslve@tufts.edu asking for another copy of their campus report. 

If you are not affiliated with a campus or institution, we cannot share individual campus reports. You may directly contact designated report recipients on a college campus and request that they share their report with you.

Institutions use their NSLVE data in a variety of ways. Students, faculty, and administrators use the data to gauge student interest and engagement in democracy; to identify and close equity gaps in student voter participation; in classes as a teaching tool; in campus-wide discussions about engagement in democracy; for evaluation and accreditation processes, as outreach materials for student admissions processes, and to catalyze involvement by faculty members across academic disciplines.