First the good news. With 46 percent of the state’s young adults having earned a college degree, Connecticut has a more educated population than 44 other states, the U.S. Department of Education reports.
Now the bad news. The rate of people with a college degree did not increase between 2009 and 2010. This leaves Connecticut a long ways from the DOE’s call that states get 60 percent of its young adults a degree by 2020. To reach that benchmark, 105,000 more residents between the ages of 25 and 34 will need degrees.
Connecticut and 15 other states saw their degree rates decline slightly over the last available two years, while nationwide the number increase slightly.
Here is a state-by-state breakdown compiled by the U.S. DOE.
Jacqueline was CT Mirror’s Education and Housing Reporter, and an original member of the CT Mirror staff, joining shortly before our January 2010 launch. Her awards include the best-of-show Theodore A. Driscoll Investigative Award from the Connecticut Society of Professional Journalists in 2019 for reporting on inadequate inmate health care, first-place for investigative reporting from the New England Newspaper and Press Association in 2020 for reporting on housing segregation, and two first-place awards from the National Education Writers Association in 2012. She was selected for a prestigious, year-long Propublica Local Reporting Network grant in 2019, exploring a range of affordable and low-income housing issues. Before joining CT Mirror, Jacqueline was a reporter, online editor and website developer for The Washington Post Co.’s Maryland newspaper chains. Jacqueline received an undergraduate degree in journalism from Bowling Green State University and a master’s in public policy from Trinity College.
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