During the height of summer, students at some of the state’s college campuses are still doing coursework to complete their education and begin their working lives. But many of these students may take their degrees and leave the state after four years.
According to the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission, only one in three students who earned bachelor’s degrees in West Virginia in 2023 were working in the state two years after graduation.
West Virginia’s labor force is shrinking, and the cost of living has continued to rise in the state while paychecks have lagged behind.
Some young people are saying better jobs, better pay and better quality of life are available just over the state’s borders.
Here’s why three West Virginians believe leaving may be inevitable.
Earning a living while making the world better
Taylor Strack, 19, is from Martinsville and currently a pre-law student at West Virginia University. Since seventh grade, she has been volunteering in her community.
From cleaning up creeks to volunteering at her local animal shelter, by the time she reached high school she was volunteering about 40 hours a week.
Strack said her parents drove her to each event, and her dad pushed her to keep volunteering.
One of the most influential experiences, though, was her work with the Berkeley County Teen Court. The court is a community program where teenagers hold mock trials for juvenile offenders, giving the offenders a chance to take responsibility for their actions with low-stakes consequences such as community service, educational classes and jury service.
In 2022, supported by the West Virginia Teen Court Association, Strack represented Berkeley County in Washington in the National Youth Leadership Forum.
One time at the Martinsburg High School’s orientation event, Strack was tabling for the Spanish National Honor Society, showing support for local immigrant parents and children. She was moved by what she saw.
“The biggest thing that stands out to me is just seeing the relief on their face, knowing that even if it’s just one table at one event, there is a safe space for them, and there are people that actually care about them,” Strack said.
But federal and state legislation have changed her plans to be an immigration attorney.
She said the injustices she has seen ICE commit under the current administration and the state’s legislative actions have convinced her that immigration law won’t be a secure career.
Instead, Strack wants to practice family law and be a guardian ad litem, an attorney assigned by the court to protect the interests of children.
“I’ve always been someone who wants to, even if it’s a small thing, make the world a better place,” Strack said.
But she is unsure if she will be able to both work and live in West Virginia after graduating from university. Strack’s father is a construction worker who works out of state. He hasn’t been able to sustain their family in Berkeley County with work in West Virginia.
Strack said, “Although I do plan to practice in West Virginia, I do not foresee myself living here once establishing my career due to the fact that more money can be made in Northern Virginia, and it is a nicer place to live — even though I will have some cases in West Virginia, my area of focus will be there.”
Getting an education or paying the bills
Angel Lillard, 20, has a lot of goals to pursue and bills to pay, but little time or energy to get to it all.
Lillard described her attention wandering from one bill to the next like being a hyperactive child with a floor full of toys. Every bill she looks at just reminds her of another.
Lillard lives with her father, and they both receive food stamps in addition to their incomes. They have not been able to drive the car for a long time because it is in need of repairs, but Lillard is hoping to learn how to drive once they have saved enough money to get it fixed.
She is studying communications with a theater emphasis at West Virginia State University in Institute. She works at a local restaurant to put herself through school. To make some extra money, she sometimes does henna tattoos for word-of-mouth clients and toys with the idea of expanding that into a full-time business.
Lillard likes to make people laugh and cracks herself up when recounting colorful stories about co-workers who couldn’t keep their hands off each other or the customer who used the floor of the Dollar General as a toilet while she was working there.
But Lillard has had a hard time getting a job that pays well enough.
She will likely have to take a gap semester, or more, off school to pay off the balance of what she owes so she can be allowed to go back.
“The jobs that are here, you’re either getting paid amazingly or getting paid like poo-poo. And it’s like, why does it have to be that way?” Lillard asked.
There is also a limit to activities she and her friends can do on tight budgets. Eating out is expensive, and so is going to the movies or buying tickets to Skyzone.
“I love this little place, and I keep defending it, but I keep not wanting to fight for it at the same time,” she said.
She almost went to college at North Carolina Central University, but had her admission revoked when the university filled its quota for out-of-state students. She is a junior at WVSU.
“It’s like I reach for the horizons and the horizons keep running,” she said.
Lillard wants her local elected officials to try shadowing low-income people, so “they could truly understand what it’s like living here versus surviving here.”
Struggling to find conservation jobs
Caleb Cordell is a 21-year-old Marshall University biology student who likes to make greeting cards and take pictures of wild mushrooms. He grew up in Fraziers Bottom and went to school right across the county line in Mason County.
Growing up near the woods made Cordell appreciate the conditions that support animal life, and he wants to work in that field of research. But he’s concerned that the state doesn’t have enough opportunities for him to work in that field outside of academia.
Not happy with the development of high-impact data centers in the state and in the country, he thinks that people do not understand their environmental impact and how fragile ecosystems are.
“It angers me a lot whenever I see how much we take for granted, how beautiful our country is and how diverse. The U.S. itself is such a diverse place, geography-wise, biology-wise, everything. And it kills me that in a place that is all about being united and standing as one, we cannot come together to keep our country beautiful. We just are actively destroying it,” he said.
Cordell said the politics of the state are part of what is driving him out.
He believes the lack of emphasis and support for conservation and research contributes to the lack of jobs in his field. He wishes the state would fund more research grants.
After he finishes his college education, Cordell said he is thinking about applying to work at the Department of Environmental Protection, but sees it as an opportunity to gain more experience for a few years, not as a long-term career.
Even in the short-term, the availability of jobs of any kind, much less in animal research, is an ongoing concern for Cordell.
He said he has even struggled to find service work. “I have applied for close to 10 jobs, and none of them have even given me a call back,” he said.
“I think I do want to (live in West Virginia) for a little bit after I graduate, but I see myself moving somewhere else. A lot of it is to do with jobs,” he said.
The federal budget cuts to biological research and conservation have worried Cordell. He is even considering travel research opportunities in other countries. “It’s looking bleak,” he said.
