Survey Details Educational, Career, Residential Aspirations of Rural Pennsylvania Youth

The educational aspirations of today’s rural Pennsylvania youth have decreased over the past decade, according to the research, Rural Youth Survey: Trends and Developments in the Attitudes and Aspirations of Rural Pennsylvania Youth. The research, conducted in spring 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic, found that more youth today plan to earn a high school diploma or less, and fewer plan to complete a four-year college degree than rural youth surveyed in 2010.

Researchers Dr. Lacey Wallace, Dr. Sam Tanner, Dr. Freyca Calderon-Berumen, and Dr. Lauren Jacobson of Penn State Altoona, documented the educational, career, and residential aspirations of rural Pennsylvania youth to learn how community, family, and peer factors might shape their aspirations, and to detail the opportunities and barriers that youth experience.

The project surveyed 9th and 11th grade students in four randomly selected rural Pennsylvania school districts and included interviews with one school principal in each of the four districts.

The results also indicated that students’ educational goals were strongly associated with their relationships with their parents.

About one third of the students surveyed wanted to remain living in rural Pennsylvania, however students with higher educational aspirations were more inclined to leave rural Pennsylvania.

In terms of career goals, the research found that health care was the top reported career goal of today’s rural youth.

However, youth largely aspired to careers that are gender-normative, such as females gravitating toward nursing and males toward manufacturing, which contributes to a gender divide in both educational and residential aspirations.

The data also revealed that many students and their families were negatively impacted by COVID-19. Students reported being depressed and anxious and had significant concerns about academics, health, and their futures as a result of the pandemic.

According to the researchers, the study results suggest that today’s rural youth need additional support from their schools and, indirectly, the Pennsylvania legislature to help close gender gaps and rural-urban gaps in youth aspirations and achievement.

Visit the Center’s website for the report, Rural Youth Survey: Trends and Developments in the Attitudes and Aspirations of Rural Pennsylvania Youth.