This paper examines the shaping factors, drivers, and impact credentials of students’ entrepreneurial intention during the COVID-19 pandemic. The proposed framework addresses the antecedents of entrepreneurial intention among students in Romania, focusing on three focal constructs, namely, risk-taking, proactiveness, and innovativeness, with a keen focus on the mediation effect of the entrepreneurial university environment. The study used self-reported data collected through an online questionnaire during November 2020–February 2021 from a sample of 1,411 students in western Romania. The methodology relies on two modern techniques of modeling cross-sectional data, namely, structural equation modeling (SEM) and Gaussian graphical models (GGMs). The main results highlight that the three constructs positively relate to students’ entrepreneurial intention in a comprehensive framework where the entrepreneurial university environment drives innovativeness. The paper brings forward, in an innovative way, that entrepreneurship education and training at the university level enhance students’ entrepreneurial intentions as it fosters the attainment of advanced knowledge and skills. The results are well associated with the start-up process as prerequisites for successful entrepreneurship engagement of youth in a globalized digital economy, particularly during this challenging pandemic outbreak, but also post-pandemic times. This research sheds new light on the essential role played by higher education institutions in providing advanced knowledge and necessary skills matched with the labor market needs, thus enhancing students’ innovativeness and their entrepreneurial intentions.

As education is the foundation of a prosperous and sustainable society and given the increasingly visible gap between urban and rural, the aim of the research undertaken in this paper is to present the level of education and labour market integration in Romania, in a comparative urban-rural approach. The dataset compiled for Romania is organized in two sub-panels, urban and rural, including indicators of the education system, but also fundamental credentials of the labour market, for the period 2000-2020. The research methodology is based on the application of two advanced econometric models, namely spatial models (lag and error) and Gaussian graphical models (GGMs). The results highlight the coordinates of the Romanian education system in the two areas of residence, urban-rural, but also the link between education and the labour market outcomes. Based on our findings, we propose adequate strategies to mitigate the gap between rural and urban and enhance the labour market performance.