While internal evaluations have monitored the effectiveness of specific programs, more general external indicators of the extent of Extension's impact have been less common. The availability of data from two statewide Pennsylvania surveys, conducted a decade apart, provided a recent assessment of changes in the number and characteristics of households using Pennsylvania Extension. Mail surveys carried out in 1980 and 1990 produced information from 9,957 and 3,632 Pennsylvanians, respectively. More households in 1990 than in 1980 reported using the services of Penn State Cooperative Extension. Extension use increased in all four program areas.
Extension continues to disproportionally serve farmers and nonmetropolitan residents.
In 1990, farmers were more than four times as likely as nonfarmers, and nonmetropolitan residents were nearly twice as likely as metropolitan residents, to use Extension's services. Consequently, nonfarm users actually outnumbered farm users by more than five to one, with more than two and a half times as many metro as nonmetro users. In the past, Extension has been criticized for paying too little attention to lower-income families. The results of this analysis provide support for the continuing and growing viability of Cooperative Extension. In 1990, more than one in every six Pennsylvania households used the services of Cooperative Extension.