Research Reports

The Rural Youth Education Study is a longitudinal study of two cohorts of rural youth that began in 2004 and will continue to 2010 to collect a total of four waves of data. The study wasmotivated by the outmigration of youth and young adults from rural areas of Pennsylvania, as the loss of this population from
rural Pennsylvania is viewed as a serious problem for the future viability of rural areas and small towns. The main goal of the study is to understand the future educational, career and residential aspirations of Pennsylvania’s rural youth, how these aspirations change over time, and what factors are associated with youth aspirations and their ultimate attainment of those aspirations.