Earlier this yr, Ishant Jawali, a 16-year-old from Raleigh, North Carolina, was scrolling on Instagram when he stumbled upon a little-known means to win cash for school: The Trump administration was placing on a nationwide civics contest for America’s 250th birthday.
He signed up, changing into one in every of about 8,000 highschool college students getting into for the likelihood to win a scholarship price up to $150,000.
After rounds of contests, he’s one in every of 20 finalists for the Presidential 1776 Award competitors, one in every of the Trump administration’s fundamental efforts to promote patriotism in younger individuals as a part of its programming for the nation’s massive birthday.
Jawali and different contestants who spoke to NCS expressed nuanced causes for taking part, together with their feelings about the contest’s connections to President Donald Trump and the thought of patriotism itself.
“I feel like it’s a bit of a loaded word, at least to me, like it’s hard to be patriotic,” Jawali stated. “It’s hard to really understand what that means when there’s so many things that you disagree with the leaders of our government about.”
The contest, which begins Tuesday at the Kennedy Center, will likely be broadcast on CBS at the finish of the month and features a White House go to for the prime three finishers.
But the anticipatory rush has include mixed feelings and thorny questions about what it means for younger individuals to be patriotic in the age of Trump, at a time when Gen Z is more and more pessimistic about the nation’s future.
Some college students in Trump’s civics contest need the scholarships, however not the politics
The civics contest has drawn teens from throughout the nation and with various backgrounds — from the kids of immigrants, like Jawali, to homeschooled college students and historical past buffs.
Being in the contest as the son of Indian immigrants was “remarkable and emotional,” stated Aangad Singh, 15, of Connecticut.
“I’m just doing this for the actual knowledge,” he stated. “Because that knowledge is permanent, like the philosophy, the rights our Constitution — that is the real reward.”
The thought for the 1776 Award dates to Trump’s first time period, when he created an education-focused panel known as the 1776 commission as a solution to The New York Times’ “1619 Project,” which he dismissed as “toxic propaganda.”
In his second time period, Trump reestablished each the fee and the contest as he seeks to put an finish to what he has known as “radical indoctrination” in colleges throughout the nation.
The contest is run by his Education Department, which below Secretary Linda McMahon has bolstered the administration’s ideological allies and made selling civics a key initiative, whilst a lot of the company has been dismantled.
McMahon has emphasised civic education in colleges, doling out simply over $150 million final fall in grant awards for nonprofits’ and universities’ civics and historical past applications. The division has additionally launched the America 250 Civics Education Coalition, made up of teams that promote classical Christian training, faculty alternative and conservative insurance policies.
The company has touted the civics competitors as a means of manufacturing extra patriotic Americans: “The Presidential 1776 Award reflects a belief central to American education: that informed students become patriotic citizens, and patriotic citizens are essential to the future of the Republic,” Murray Bessette, an Education Department official and classical training proponent, wrote in a weblog publish earlier this yr.
Trump and his administration loomed massive over the contest — and in some contestants’ minds.
High faculty senior Macon Harrell, a finalist from Mississippi, stated at first he was involved about how historical past may very well be interpreted by the judges and that they’d keep away from “dark parts” of the nation’s previous. Trump has issued a number of government orders that critics say try to rewrite historical past and ignore tough questions about America’s previous, together with about slavery and the struggles of minority teams.
Harrell determined to take part and stated his concern has not been borne out. “I don’t think that this competition, shockingly, has sugarcoated what our nation is,” the 18-year-old stated.
Though some elements have been typical — multiple-choice questions about topics like key battles of the American Revolution or ideas in the Federalist Papers — others have been much less so, in accordance to Jawali.
At his regional competitors, contestants got wearable cameras to make movies of each other and free hats with the yr “1776” stitched on entrance — which he stated reminded him of some Trump-branded merchandise.
Contestants have spent hours a day over the previous a number of weeks getting ready for the ultimate spherical.
Rowan Kozminski, 16, of Grand Rapids, Michigan, studied for the competitors nearly with a pal in Florida who competed in the earlier rounds. Summer Brondstetter, 17, of Seattle, stated she grew to become extra invested as she progressed by way of the contest, generally finding out together with her dad for 2 to three hours a day.
Many who spoke to NCS described the camaraderie they felt with different college students in the competitors, logging hours quizzing each other with flashcards.
After clinching a finalist spot, Jawali wrestled with whether or not his friends may mistake his participation for assist for the administration, he stated.
“I definitely had a thought in the back of my mind, like, ‘OK, what does it say about me if I’m doing this thing?’ but I think that money, and also the sort of topic, was enough for me to overcome that,” he stated.
“I don’t know if the competition has been super successful in selling patriotism, to be honest; it’s a lot of people talking about the principles and being engaged about that, but again, like a big motivation that I saw amongst the people, and I guess amongst myself, was financial,” he stated.
Others felt no such battle.
“This is not a political issue. This is an American issue,” stated Brondstetter, the pupil from Seattle, who stated she is a supporter of the president. “Everyone walking away from the competition knowing this is the greatest country of the world — why the Constitution works, why government exists — that is the most important gift in the world.”
Kozminski, the pupil from Michigan, acknowledged that he thought Trump’s Department of Education has achieved a number of “contentious” issues, however stated he thought the contest was one factor it obtained proper.
“I think that they have missed the mark on certain other policy goals, but I think this is a big success to be able to celebrate students that have this level of achievement — regardless of what president it’s under,” he stated.
Students Share Thoughts on Patriotism
But younger individuals throughout the US are divided over whether or not to really feel delight in the nation.
According to a June 2025 Gallup poll, solely 41% of adults who belong to Generation Z have been extraordinarily or very proud to be Americans in recent times, in contrast with 58% of millennials. Many younger individuals have been rattled by the trials of rising up throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, together with the excessive value of school training and housing.
Young individuals overwhelmingly take a dim view of Trump — in accordance to a May NCS/SSRS poll, 77% of respondents aged 18-34 disapproved of the means he’s dealing with his job as president — and how democracy is functioning at this time. Only 16% of Gen Z respondents stated the system is working effectively for younger individuals, in accordance to a 2025 report from the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, or CIRCLE, at Tufts University.
“They don’t dislike democracy as a system, they generally support the principles of a democratic government, but they’re not seeing those principles being lived up to,” stated Ruby Belle Booth, a researcher at CIRCLE.
Booth stated her analysis reveals Gen Z nonetheless has a “resilience” round their political participation. “They are not going to give up just because they don’t like the system; they’re going to work to change it,” she stated.
The 1776 Award isn’t the solely Trump-backed contest aimed toward youths. Later this yr, the administration will maintain a sporting occasion, the “Patriot Games,” which the president has billed as “an unprecedented four-day athletic event featuring the greatest high school athletes — one young man and one young woman from each state and territory.”
Various nonpartisan civics initiatives to encourage youth to join with America’s founding and promote delight are going down. America Gives, a program to encourage younger individuals to volunteer, and America’s Field Trip, a contest for schoolchildren, each run by America 250, a congressionally overseen nonprofit, have drawn 9 million and over 10,000 members, respectively.
Made By Us, a youth-led civics coalition backed by main cultural establishments like the Smithsonian, has launched “Civic Season” and is predicted to attain over 20,000 individuals with 300 in-person occasions taking place in 43 states.
Another Made by Us undertaking, known as Letters to America, asks Gen Z to replicate on what the nation means to them.
In the dozens of letters posted to this point, highschool college students and younger individuals of their 20s grapple with the promise of America and their difficult feelings about the nation’s previous.
Like Jawali and Singh, 16-year-old Annalise Huang is the little one of immigrants. She was drawn to the Letters to America marketing campaign to categorical her difficult feelings about the nation that grew to become a flashpoint between her and her grandfather, who immigrated from China to Ecuador earlier than settling in the United States.
In her letter, “A New Patriotism,” she described a really completely different type of patriotism from what Trump has touted. The president has known as for educating kids to “love our country, honor our history and always respect our great American flag.”
“I am a patriot not for my unwavering support of America’s actions,” Huang wrote, “but rather my relentless devotion to make this country better.”