While nationally college seniors with loans graduated with an average of $23,200 in loan debt in 2008, Connecticut graduates with loans carried an average of $26,138.
The only areas higher than Connecticut were the District of Columbia with an average of $29,793 and Iowa with $28,174. On the low end were Utah at $13,041 and Hawaii at $15,156.
Why are some states so much higher than others? "There's no single answer involved," said Lauren Asher, president of the Institute for College Access & Success, which produced the Project on Student Debt. "Conditions are different in different states: It has to do with the types of schools, the prices they charge, the availability of student aid, the cost of living and also the demographics of the students themselves."
She said that the Northeastern states are disproportionately represented among the "high debt" states, possibly because the region tends to have more students attending private colleges and higher than average tuition for public and private colleges.
Five of the six New England states are ranked in the top 10; Massachusetts is sixteenth.
New England college seniors are also more likely to graduate with debt than seniors elsewhere in the country. In Connecticut, 63 percent of graduating seniors in 2008 had debt; that percentage was 17th-highest in the country.
Two Connecticut schools made it onto a list of private nonprofit colleges in which students with loans carry a particularly high amount of debt: the University of Hartford, with an average student debt of $38,852; and Quinnipiac University, with $37,849.
Michael P. Meotti, Connecticut's commissioner of higher education, said he is not at all surprised that students attending colleges in Connecticut and other Northeastern states carry higher debt.
"In other parts of the country 80 to 90 percent of students attend public institutions," said Meotti, which tend to be bargain-priced, compared to private colleges and universities. "People don't realize how vastly different it is here. ... There aren't many states that have more students going to private schools than in Connecticut."
Judith Greiman, president of the Connecticut Conference of Independent Colleges, noted that about half of all bachelor's degrees and more than half of all graduate degrees awarded in Connecticut are conferred by private colleges and universities. She attributed the higher debt loads to the higher numbers of students at private colleges in the Northeast, along with what she said is higher average tuition costs at public universities here. Meotti said that the most important point in the report was that "people are taking on more debt and it's continuing to increase."
The report says that the amount of loan debt carried by students has been creeping up nationally, increasing by about 6 percent each year since 2003-04, when the average debt was $18,650. Also, significant, Asher, of the Institute for College Access & Success, said, is the increase in the percentage of graduates with debt from four-year colleges: up from 58 percent in 1996 to two-thirds of all students now.
The increasing amounts of debt present a particular challenge, Asher said, as unemployment rates for young college graduates also have risen. The unemployment rate for college graduates aged 20 to 24 was 7.6 percent in the third quarter of 2008; by the third quarter of 2009, the rate had climbed to 10.6 percent.
"With debt and unemployment at record levels, young college graduates may feel stuck between a rock and a hard place," Asher said in a statement.
At Quinnipiac University, Dominic Yoia, director of financial aid, said it appears that the average debt load figure for students at the university "in and of itself isn't alarming because students seem to manage the debt very well."
In the 10 years that he has been at the college, Yoia said, the federal loan default rate has been 1 percent or less.
The study includes private and government loans taken out by students, but not loans by parents. In Connecticut, with many middle-class parents taking out loans for their children's education, Meotti said the actual debt per family is probably higher than indicated by the study. The numbers used in the study were voluntarily reported by colleges.
Asher said the Institute for College Access & Success started the project on debt four years ago because, "There is a really significant change in the way Americans are expected to pay for higher education. A generation ago, a low-to-moderate income student going to a state college, working truly part time and full time in the summer for minimum wage, would, through a combination of subsidies, not have to borrow. That same student would have to borrow today."
"College is still a good investment and some borrowing is a reasonable response to the cost structure," she said, but "it's really important for people to know that no investment is without risks."
Borrowing a great deal as a student, Asher said, can in the future "have implications for whether you save for a home, start a family, start a business, or save for retirement."
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Average Student Debt
Nationwide State Average Debt Rank in Nation Percent Students w/ Debt District of Columbia $29,793 1 49% Iowa $28,174 2 73% Connecticut $26,138 3 63% New York $25,950 4 65% New Hampshire $25,785 5 70% Minnesota $25,558 6 72% National Average $23,200
2008 Graduates of CT Schools University of Hartford $38,852 Quinnipiac University $37,849 Fairfield University $32,857 Sacred Heart University $27,516 Wesleyan University $27,402 Western Connecticut State University $23,970 University of Connecticut $21,521 Connecticut College $21,283 Southern Connecticut State University $19,007 Trinity College $17,218 Yale University $12,297 Central Connecticut State University $10,500
Source: The Project on Student Debt, an initiative of the Institute for College Access & Success