Focusing on Hungarian minority youth in a rural Slovakian setting, this article analyses their higher education aspirations and choices amidst significant economic, political and educational reforms. Relying on mixed methods and a longitudinal design, the research follows a cohort of high school students from their last year of secondary school through university up to their graduate destinations several years onwards. The data reveal three main study-work trajectories reflecting different trade-offs in terms of higher education studies, graduate careers and ethnic identity maintenance that affect life-chances and the future of the Hungarian community in Slovakia.