
Overview
Young adults in Texas are navigating a unique period of political and social tension. We face a perfect storm of challenges, with mounting pressures in education, healthcare, and basic living costs. Rising tuition and fees make higher education less attainable, while restrictive healthcare policies and attacks on campus free speech threaten both physical and intellectual well-being. At the same time, the erosion of immigration systems and skyrocketing inflation on everyday expenses compound the uncertainty for a generation striving to establish themselves in adulthood.
Instead of focusing on solutions that would help ease hardships felt across the state, like critical infrastructure, education, and health care systems, our leadership has focused on social issues that disproportionately affect vulnerable populations. As a result, young adults are stepping up to help reshape the political landscape in Texas, ensuring that the state’s future reflects the needs of all its residents.
As our generation navigates these challenges, we realize the profound impact policy has on our lives and the barriers that keep the average citizen, especially young adults, excluded from meaningful participation in shaping those policies. This shift, from being undervalued and dismissed in the political process to actively challenging systems and advocating for change, marks a rising wave of young adults reclaiming their power and threatening the status quo of democracy.
This shift reminds us that advocacy is not just a tool to have voices heard– it is a transformative force for change. Now, more than ever, we must leverage advocacy as a powerful vehicle to amplify the needs of historically marginalized groups: LGBTQ+ youth, young parents, immigrant communities, and students from diverse racial and socioeconomic backgrounds. These communities are not only disproportionately impacted by system inequities but are also at the forefront of reshaping the political landscape in Texas.
Through advocacy, testimony, and coalition-building, we will lift the voices of young adults who reject any agenda that seeks to define their futures or marginalize their communities’ potential. This year, Young Invincibles’ Texas policy agenda focuses on addressing young adults’ demands for structural change while advancing immediate, practical actions to build a better future for Texas.
