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School is back in session this week for many across the state, and if the current trend continues, more Connecticut residents will be pursuing a degree in higher education this year than in the past.

The percentage of residents with an associate’s, bachelor’s or advanced degree is higher than it was 10 years ago; today, nearly half of Connecticut residents 25 and older hold a degree.

An estimated 47% of the population holds a degree past high school, according to 2024 Census data. This is up from 2014, when an estimated 42.6% of the population held a degree.

The percentage of the population with a college degree had been trending upwards since 2015. But since 2020, when there was no Census survey conducted due to the pandemic, the share of people with college degrees increased by about 2 percentage points.

The percentage of residents over 25 with associate’s degrees held steady. Around 7.6% of the surveyed population held an associate’s degree in 2014, compared to 7.7% in 2024.

The percentage of bachelor’s degree holders increased steadily, by an estimated 1.7 percentage points from 2015 to 2024.

Holders of master’s or doctorate degrees contributed the most to the overall increase in higher education in the state, an estimated 2.1 percentage points more than 2014.

From 2023 to 2024, there was a slight drop-off — the percentage of 25-and-older residents with any degree, except for bachelor’s, dipped slightly.

But the state is not uniform, and education levels vary significantly by town.

According to the most recent data, the percent of residents holding degrees past high school is higher in the southeast corner compared to the northwest corner.

Sen. Mae Flexer, D-Windham, represents a number of towns in Northeast Connecticut. She said these numbers may reflect the economic status of some residents.

“It is very easy to fall off the path when there is financial crisis,” Flexer said. “I think that is a big part of this.”

Flexer grew up in Killingly in a family that struggled financially. She said she only went to college because her mother pushed her and her sister to try for education past high school. She ended up going to community college, and then to UConn.

Now, community college is free for almost anyone in the area, Flexer said. Through the program, Flexer has heard of more people pursuing education at community college.

Flexer said people in the community have told her, “I really just didn’t know what I wanted to do, so then I went to the community college because it was free, and I had more money for the last two years.”

Sasha is a data reporting fellow with The Connecticut Mirror. She graduated from the University of Maryland in May with a degree in journalism and a minor in creative writing. For the past year Sasha was working part time for the Herald-Mail, a newspaper based in Western Maryland. She was also a reporter and copy editor for Capital News Service, the university’s wire service where she covered the state legislature, the Baltimore Key Bridge collapse, school board elections, youth mental health and climate change. Earlier in her college career, Sasha also interned at the Baltimore Magazine and wrote for numerous student publications including the Diamondback, the university’s independent, student-run newspaper.