Financially cripple someone and they’ll do whatever it takes to get out from under the weight of crushing debt. Even, apparently, give up their voice and their vote.

At least that’s what one poll from a personal finance website called Credible found with results indicating a full 50 percent of 18-34 year olds in the U.S. would give up their right to vote if it meant having their college debt absolved.

According to a new survey from personal finance website Credible, 50 per cent of 18 to 34 year-olds questioned in the US said they would sacrifice their vote at the next two presidential elections in order to wipe the slate clean on their college debt.

That was higher than the proportion of students who said they would forego ride-sharing services like Uber or Lyft (44 per cent), and double the amount who said they would be willing to move back home with their parents.

Just 8.2 per cent said they would chose to keep paying the debt in full and not give up anything.

That is a fairly stunning statistic that speaks not only to concerns millennials have for their fiscal future, but also how much they value the right to cast a vote, something not available to everyone in the world (not that they’re learning that in classrooms).

It would appear those that worry college students are being indoctrinated against the precepts of the American founding ideals — and students have most certainly been waging a war against free speech on campuses lately — aren’t overwrought in their concern.

Instead of placing a premium on protecting the rights of the individual to have a say in who governs them and how they are governed through the free exchange of ideas, they have instead been coaxed into a mindset where collectivism (or Socialism) rules. It can be seen in the hashtag crusades and the almost interminable marches against whatever new thing is collectively bad this week. “Join the crowd” is the message. Only then can you be heard.

Socialism’s mean twin sister — Fascism — makes an appearance here, too in the form of using the means of production (in this case how one manages to get an education and, by extension, a job) to control the populace. These kids are held captive to their student loans and the government that grants them. And they’re willing to “join the crowd” and give up their fundamental freedoms because they believe that will somehow set them free. The irony would be funny if it weren’t so sad.

And insidious. Which is why stories indicating fewer people see college as worth the money stop sounding like gloom and doom and bad news and start sounding more like just good financial sense.

With nothing but the utmost respect to trade schools, the death of the liberal arts education under the expense of providing it isn’t really that grand. Socialists and Fascists are also pretty fond of an uneducated populace. Easier to control.