NYU Students Would Trade the Right to Vote for an Ipod Touch or Full Tuition

Tuesday in class, Stephen Seymour (4:10 section) showed me a set of statistics on a study done at NYU that appeared in an issue of THE ECONOMIST. It said something like students at NYU were surveyed and would give up their right to vote for a year in exchange for an iPod touch and they'd give up their right to vote forever for free tuition (a free ride). I was stunned.

What's interesting is to compare and contrast the November 22nd print version that appeared in The Economist (very short):

For sale
A poll of New York University students revealed that 20% would give up their vote in the next election for an iPod and two-thirds would do so for a year's college tuition. Half would renounce their vote permanently for $1m.

with the longer version dated November 14th that appeared in The Politico:

...66 percent said they'd forfeit their vote for a free ride to NYU. And half said they'd give up the right to vote forever for $1 million.

But they also overwhelmingly lauded the importance of voting.

Ninety percent of the students who said they'd give up their vote for the money also said they consider voting "very important" or "somewhat important"; only 10 percent said it was "not important."

Also, 70.5 percent said they believe that one vote can make a difference — including 70 percent of the students who said they'd give up their vote for free tuition.

The class — "Foundations of Journalism," taught by journalism department chairwoman Brooke Kroeger — polled more than 3,000 undergraduates between Oct. 24 and 26 to assess student attitudes toward voting.

Which version says more and what difference does it make to the reader? How might the shorter or longer version be better or worse for cultural perceptions of college students? In what way does each contribute to stratification along class lines and to concerns about wealth, power and prestige in the U.S.?