Poll: Students do not think the U.S. is moving in the right direction

WILKES-BARRE — Teri Ooms, executive director at The Institute for Public Policy & Economic Development said the organization operates a polling center and each year it polls students at its 13 academic partner institutions.

The most recent poll focuses on student opinions related to public policy. More than 2,000 students responded to the poll.

“Overall, students do not think the United States is moving in the right direction,” Ooms said. “Their perceptions of Pennsylvania’s trajectory, however, are not as clear.”

Ooms said more than 9% of students believe that the United States is headed in the right direction, while nearly 51% believe the country is on the wrong course.

Yet another 26.9% indicated feelings that the country’s direction is ultimately unchanged, while a final 12.9% are uncertain about the country’s direction.

The margin between “right track and wrong track” answers has grown, from a deficit of 18% in 2018 to 25% in 2019, 37% in 2020, and now 41.6%.

Ooms said students’ perceptions of Pennsylvania’s direction are considerably less certain, with 34.5% withholding opinion on the subject. Of those who did share their thoughts, 25.9% claim that the Commonwealth’s direction is fundamentally unchanged, 15.1% express optimism, and 24.5% have concerns. In the past year, concerns have increased 6.6% and optimism has decreased 5.3%.

Student respondents deemed the cost of education, healthcare policy, jobs and economic development, government corruption, and public health to be the most important national public policy issues, while policies related to the national debt were rated least important.

Students were asked to evaluate the importance of various public policy issues by assigning a number between 1 (‘Not at All important’) to 5 (‘Very Important’).

Based on this scale, the most important public policy issues to regional students are: (1) the cost of education (4.5); (2) healthcare policy (4.4); (3) jobs and the economy (4.4); (4) corruption of government or public officials (4.4); (5) public health (4.4); (6) equality or civil rights issues (4.3); (7) government efficiency (4.2); and (8) criminal justice or police issues (4.2).

The bottom tier of issues include (1) the national debt (3.6); (2) immigration (3.8); (3) tax policy (3.8); (4) Social Security (3.9); (5) energy policy (4.0); (6) terrorism and homeland security (4.2); (7) climate change (4.2); and (8) issues related to education — other than cost (4.2).

Public policy issues over time

While the full range of public policy issues presented in this course of this survey has expanded from year to year, the overwhelming majority of issues evaluated by students have been featured regularly enough to analyze over a longer-term period.

Students appear to be most concerned about four public policy issues: (1) the cost of a college education; (2) healthcare policy; (3) environmental issues; and (4) jobs and economy. In particular, the costs of college education and healthcare have been top public policy issues for regional students since this poll commenced in 2015.

The importance of jobs and the economy has declined more than any other policy issue (from 63 percent to 50 percent), while the perceived importance of environment policy has grown most (from 35 percent to 50 percent). Graphic one

Media dissemination

Reliance on traditional media conduits, whether by print (newspaper), television, or radio, has generally declined since 2016. On the other hand, the use of the internet—including social media—has become an important resource for students.

In 2018, for the first time in the Public Policy and Civic Engagement Poll, the wider range of resource options were provided to respondents, in an attempt to more fully capture the diverse methods by which today’s students acquire news and information. These methods include smartphone applications and podcasts.

When comparing these results to those of previous years, however, these new categories must be reintegrated back into larger categories, which explains the pronounced jump in the number of students who receive news from ‘Internet – Other’ between 2017 and 2018.

Reach Bill O’Boyle at 570-991-6118 or on Twitter @TLBillOBoyle.