Scholars like Foa and Mounk (2016) have demonstrated that democracy is feared to be in decline in the United States, especially amongst younger generations. This research study identified lessons learned about building democratic values from community engaged and politically engaged U.S. college students and detected differences in perceptions of democracy between these two civic subgroups. The study explored civically engaged college students' perceptions about democracy, identified programs or types of involvement that effectively promote democratic values, and analyzed the impact of community and political engagement. Concepts such as democratic deconsolidation and national data sets like the World Values Survey (Inglehart et al., 2014) and CIRCLE's Civic Health Index (2010) informed the methodological approach and interview questions. After conducting a mixed method design using semi-structured interviews of 41 college students at three higher education institutions in the northeast U.S., no statistical differences or typologies emerged between perceptions of community engaged and politically engaged U.S. college students. However, the complicated perceptions of democracy revealed a surprising deficit of democratic knowledge and emerging signs of democratic deconsolidation that should activate systemic change in U.S. civic education. The researcher recommends transitioning from one-time, siloed approaches to an integrated, multi-year developmental civic model that incorporates waking moments, a cadre of social media influencers, mitigating political inequities, and a recommitment to prioritizing civic education to protect the future health of the U.S. democracy. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com.bibliotheek.ehb.be/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]