Student Well-Being

The Kids Are All Right? Teens Are Optimistic About the Future

By Arianna Prothero — September 08, 2022 3 min read
A player lands on \"Job Search\" in The Game of Life.
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

It seems nearly every poll, study, and anecdote show that teenagers’ overall mental health is in a bad state. But here’s a bit of good news: A new survey of teenagers by ACT has found that despite all of the challenges thrown up by the pandemic in the past few years, teens are overwhelmingly optimistic about their futures.

More than 80 percent of students said they feel high levels of optimism that their lives will turn out well, according to survey results released by ACT, the nonprofit that runs the ACT college entrance exam. High schoolers see well-paying jobs, home ownership, and good health in their futures.

“The study shows that members of Generation Z are, on average, optimistic about their own futures, convinced that they will have financial stability, happy families, and positive social connections,” ACT CEO Janet Godwin said in a statement to the press. “Today’s high school students are hopeful of achieving the kinds of outcomes that define a successful life.”

Fifty-five percent of students said they were as optimistic about positive future outcomes in life and work now as they were before the pandemic, while 17 percent said they would have provided a more negative estimate of their future success pre-pandemic than they do now.

Black students were arguably the most optimistic among all racial and ethnic groups. The survey asked students to estimate how likely they were to achieve 17 different positive life outcomes. On nine of those—career that pays well, career you enjoy, steady employment, live where you want, hobbies you enjoy, financial resources to retire comfortably, better life than their parents had, better life for their own children than they had, and a life that turns out well overall—Black students were more likely to estimate they would achieve those outcomes than students of other races and ethnicities, and those differences were statistically significant.

White students were the least likely to believe they would do better than their parents and that their own children would do better than themselves. The same was true for students from high-income families, a finding that is consistent with other research, according to the ACT report.

White and Asian students were much more likely to indicate that they felt confident they would have the financial means to complete college than Black or Hispanic students.

Among students from low-income families, Black students were more optimistic about their futures than their peers in other racial and ethnic groups. Overall, the more money students’ families earned, the more likely they were to be optimistic about their futures and the less variation there was among racial and ethnic groups.

While teens’ optimism is running high, it doesn’t mean that the pandemic and all the stressors it brought hasn’t diminished many students’ outlook toward the future. Around one third of teens reported that they believe they would have been even more optimistic about their future outcomes had the pandemic not happened. These students tended to be less optimistic when it came to ranking their chances at attaining positive future outcomes compared with their peers who said the pandemic had not affected their outlook.

Other polling shows there are specific issues that teens are less optimistic about, such as political division, racial discrimination, and climate change.

Plus, even before the pandemic, mental health disorders, such as anxiety and depression, were on the rise among children and adolescents and many schools were struggling to keep pace with that demand. Suicide rates among children 10 and older had also climbed significantly since 2007, making suicide the second leading cause of death among adolescents before the pandemic. And the pandemic has not helped curb growing concerns about the mental health of young people.

Yet despite those challenges, “we found that the pandemic had little effect on optimism for most students. It did not affect most students’ outlooks on important events, like having a fulfilling career and being able to save, invest, and retire, and this was consistent across racial and ethnic groups and family income category,” said ACT lead research scientist Jeff Schiel, who conducted the study, in a statement.

Events

This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
School Climate & Safety Webinar
Investing in Success: Leading a Culture of Safety and Support
Content provided by Boys Town
Assessment K-12 Essentials Forum Making Competency-Based Learning a Reality
Join this free virtual event to hear from educators and experts working to implement competency-based education.
This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Recruitment & Retention Webinar
Substitute Teacher Staffing Simplified: 5 Strategies for Success
Struggling to find quality substitute teachers? Join our webinar to learn key strategies to keep your classrooms covered and students learning.
Content provided by Kelly Education

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

Student Well-Being Opinion 3 Things You Need to Know About Absenteeism
We studied the data from more than 1.5 million students. Here’s are some overlooked insights to boost attendance.
Todd Rogers, Emily Bailard & Mikia Manley
4 min read
Scattered school desks seen from above, some with red x's on them signifying absences.
Vanessa Solis/Education Week and iStock/Getty Images
Student Well-Being SEL Has Become Politicized. Schools Are Embracing It Anyway
Eighty-three percent of principals report that their schools use an SEL curriculum or program.
5 min read
Image of positive movement when attending to a student's well-being is a component.
Dmitrii_Guzhanin/iStock/Getty and Laura Baker/Education Week
Student Well-Being Students Don't Want to Talk About Politics, Either
The election is occurring at a time when many schools are discouraged from having tough conversations in class.
6 min read
Viewers gather to watch a debate between Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump at the Angry Elephant Bar and Grill, Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024, in San Antonio.
Viewers gather to watch a debate between Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump at the Angry Elephant Bar and Grill, Sept. 10, 2024, in San Antonio. Researchers say students are more reluctant to talk politics this election cycle.
Eric Gay/AP
Student Well-Being Opinion Can Athletic Coaches Help Students Learn More in the Classroom?
School sports can provide an opportunity for mentorship.
8 min read
Image shows a multi-tailed arrow hitting the bullseye of a target.
DigitalVision Vectors/Getty