Every election, there’s one group that can depend on being superficially courted in a few prominent speeches and college speaking tours and then summarily forgotten: students.

Even in this election, in which young people came out in record numbers to boost Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign to victory over his Democratic primary rival Sen. Hillary Clinton – student issues barely have been mentioned, and policies still are overwhelmingly tilted against us.

Both general election candidates, Sens. Obama and John McCain (R-Ariz.), have offered little in the way of tuition grants (in every industrialized country except the United States, students can attend four-year public university for free).

They have vowed to continue a senseless drug war that disproportionately hurts us, and they have pandered to anti-student lobbies such as the student debt industry’s front group, the Education Finance Council.

The reaction of many young people to a political system that seems disinterested in us is just to not participate. Of course, this only perpetuates the problem. The less we participate, the less we threaten those in power, and the less chance there is that our concerns will be addressed.

That’s where Zach Nikonovich-Kahn comes in. Nikonovich-Kahn is a 20-year-old junior at the University, a resident of Atlanta since his birth, and plans to run for mayor of that city in 2009.

I know what you’re thinking: What a long shot! Why is he even wasting his time? He has no chance!

I decided to ask him why he was running.

“My whole life, I’ve wanted to give back to the community,” he tells me. “Being a public servant is something I’ve always wanted to do … I’ve always had a strong connection to Atlanta.”

He runs through a list of areas he’s concerned about: equitable funding of public education across the city, boosting teachers’ salaries and engaging students to get involved in the political process.

On every issue he addresses, Nikonovich-Kahn comes across as an intelligent, informed and passionate advocate. Yet I tell him I can’t shake the notion that he will be caricatured by the political class and the pundits for his age; he responds by telling me his age is an asset, that he is less tainted by the political process, and that he has a gigantic student base to tap into and represent.

Nikonovich-Kahn’s run is not without historical precedence. Many advances – ending the Vietnam War, winning civil rights and rights for the disabled and eliminating Apartheid – could not have been made without student involvement in politics.

All over the world, students are showing how much power they have when they get involved in the process.

Recently in Chile, hundreds of thousands of students went on strike, successfully forcing the government to increase tuition and transportation grants drastically to the poorest of students.

In Muskogree, Okla., students fed up with the local government ignoring the younger age group ran a University of Oklahoma student for mayor. He defeated the three-term incumbent mayor with 70 percent of the vote.

Whether he wins or loses, Nikonovich-Kahn’s entry into the mayoral race sends a clear signal to public officials everywhere.

Yes, we’re young. But we have real concerns about our government, and we are ready to organize, vote and even run for public office ourselves in order to change things.

- Zaid Jilani is a junior from Kennesaw majoring in international affairs.