Is College Worth the Cost? Connecticut Residents Say Yes, More Than Residents of Other New England States

Connecticut residents have the highest support for college at 49 percent, followed by Rhode Island at 48 percent, according to a survey done for the Boston Globe by Emerson College, asking the increasingly popular question, is college worth it?.

Opinions are mixed in Massachusetts and Vermont, according to the survey, while in New Hampshire and Maine, the largest share of respondents shared the opinion that college isn’t worth it, the Globe recently reported.

Across New England 40 percent of respondents said the main reason to attend college was to get a good job, followed by “to make more money,” at 24 percent.  In fact, 56 percent of New England adults believe that a college degree is essential for landing a good job, the Globe reported.

The Globe noted that “studies show that historic economic advantage has been eroding for recent graduates as loans and other debts have skyrocketed,” pointing out that “the cost-benefit analysis undertaken by prospective students and their families has gotten far more complicated.”

In the Globe Magazine-Emerson College Polling survey, 52 percent of New England adults said their college degrees were not worth the loans they needed to get them, and now regret taking on that debt, the Globe’s article on the survey, published this spring, explained.

Among New Englanders, the percentage who, if they have student loans, are concerned about their ability to afford the payments break out this way:  45% are very concerned, 32% are somewhat concerned, and only 17% are not too concerned, with 6% not concerned at all.

Overall, 78 percent of those surveyed support dropping college degree requirements for jobs, moving toward more skills-based hiring.  Yet, the states producing the highest-earning college graduates in the nation are Massachusetts at $59,862; Connecticut at $59, 356, and New Jersey at $58,904, based on average annual salary four years after graduation, the Globe reported.

A total of 6,000 adults across the six New England states were surveyed in February 2024.