A survey of rural Nebraska youths has revealed that while the majority desire living in small towns, they also feel like they don't play a role in the communities they live in.
The Nebraska Community Foundation and University of Nebraska at Omaha's Center for Public Affairs Research released the results Monday after surveying nearly 1,000 middle and high school students in 11 rural communities.
It's the latest installment of the Greater Nebraska Youth Survey that the foundation and university has been administering annually since January 2020. The survey was created to reveal the priorities and desires of Nebraska youths, along with the factors that may influence their decision to leave or remain in the state.
The 2023 survey was composed of the communities of Arcadia, Crofton, David City, Diller-Odell , Imperial, Ogallala, Ord, Paxton, Pender, Shickley and Stuart.
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At a Monday press conference, K.C. Belitz, former chief operating officer for the Nebraska Community Foundation, said the survey's positive feedback shows that participants desire the aspects of what Nebraska already offers: small towns that provide safety, good schools and proximity to family.
These factors were ranked as the top three in what students are looking for in an ideal community. "For the first time in any of our lifetimes, I would submit to you the things that they are looking for are what we already are," Belitz said. "Nebraska, and particularly rural Nebraska, has spent decades trying to reinvent ourselves to be something that we thought young people wanted.
"And we may have been right at the time. But what you're going to hear in these results is that for the first time, we don't have to reinvent ourselves to be attractive to the people who will be young professionals now and going forward for the next 10 or 20 years."
Roughly 64% of youths said their ideal community is small, like their hometown, while 25% preferred medium cities, such as Grand Island. Only 8% of students surveyed said they want to live in a large city like Omaha and 4% in a very large city like Chicago.
Survey participants — the majority being in high school — seem to be engaged but also don't feel included in their communities. About 65% of students said they are invited to share opinions or get involved in their towns and 76% said they feel connected to the place they are living right now. But 76% also said they don't play a role in their communities, such as helping make decisions about community events, programs, lawmaking or projects.
"These young people just don't want to have their opinions taken; they just don't want to share their opinions. They actually want to co-create community with us," said Jeff Yost, Nebraska Community Foundation president. "So let's invite them into co-creating community with us."
Foundation staff recommended communities invite youths on organizational boards or to create events or projects with more youths involved to help increase the sense of belonging and inclusion.
Boosting inclusivity in rural towns is also a need, Yost said. About 41% of student participants said they have been bullied either online or in person. When asked what would improve their communities, several students wrote answers that included the need for more kindness and less bullying, according to the survey.
"We need to figure out how to become kinder and more inclusive, and really welcome people, and really engender a sense of belonging for everybody," Yost said.
The survey also asked students how likely they are to stay in the area they live now. Nearly 60% said that they are either extremely or somewhat likely to stay in their communities. Job opportunities was the top reason to live elsewhere.
The loss of young people has been something Nebraska has been dealing with for years. While the survey's students — who have yet to graduate — prefer to stay in Nebraska, research shows that each year in the last decade, more people with at least a bachelor's degree are leaving the state. This is commonly referred to as "brain drain," according to UNO's Center for Public Affairs Research.
"People with a bachelor's degree or more are more likely to leave than folks with a high school (diploma) or (someone) with some college or an associate's degree," said Josie Gatti Schafer, director for the center, in a webinar earlier this year. "We do see that over the past 10 years, that's been trending in the opposite direction. We're losing more of those high-skill workers."
Monday's survey results highlight the need to retain and attract youths to rural communities, according to the survey analysis.
"Fifty-eight percent report being likely to stay (in Nebraska). So there is still a larger group that say that they may not stay," Gatti Schafer said Monday. "The future is uncertain. So we have the opportunity to learn from that group, about what rural communities can do."
