Quad
Trends by state

Trends by state

Connecticut

26 colleges on the site: 10 public, 14 private nonprofit, 2 for-profit. Their undergraduates grew 4% in total since fall 2014, to 104,837 today (23 of 26 Connecticut colleges in the panel).

Explore Connecticut's colleges

How Connecticut's colleges changed

The median Connecticut college, fall 2014 to fall 2024, against the national median (dashed) over the same .

Undergraduates

-5%

over 10 years, median college

  • This state
  • National median

Applicants

+54%

over 10 years, median college

  • This state
  • National median

Acceptance rate

+8.2 pts

over 10 years, median college

  • This state
  • National median

Average total cost

-13%

over 10 years, median college

  • This state
  • National median

Public and private

State stories are often public-system stories: a state's publics shrinking while its privates hold, or the reverse.

Public

9 colleges

Private nonprofit

13 colleges
Undergrads
-3%
Applicants
+54%
Acceptance rate
−1.0 pts
Average cost
-13%

Where Connecticut's first-years come from

Top sending states

  1. Connecticut (in-state)48%
  2. NY15%
  3. MA10%
  4. NJ7%
  5. CA2%
  6. PA2%
  7. TX1%
  8. RI1%

Public:

4% → 10% (10 colleges)

Private nonprofit:

72% → 69% (14 colleges)

First-years crossing state lines, fall 2024

Inflow
10,946
Outflow
12,515
Net
-1,569

Connecticut's colleges enroll 0.9 first-years from other states for every Connecticut resident who starts college in another state, among four-year colleges on this site.

Colleges taking the most of the inflow

  1. University of Connecticut17%
  2. Sacred Heart University13%
  3. Quinnipiac University12%
  4. Yale University12%
  5. Fairfield University12%

One fall, over campus-based colleges only: not that fall, not for-profit, and not a campus that merged or split.

Biggest movers in Connecticut

The same as the national lists, restricted to Connecticut's colleges.

Applications surged

, fall 2014 to fall 2024

Median college: +50.3% (16 colleges ranked)

  1. 1University of New Haven+141.7%9,006 → 21,765
  2. 2Southern Connecticut State University+92.7%4,568 → 8,803
  3. 3Yale University+86.0%30,932 → 57,517
  4. 4Fairfield University+85.5%9,978 → 18,509
  5. 5Sacred Heart University+81.0%9,114 → 16,495
  6. 6University of Connecticut+77.4%31,280 → 55,479
  7. 7University of Bridgeport+54.2%5,990 → 9,237
  8. 8Wesleyan University+53.2%9,390 → 14,389
  9. 9Connecticut College+47.4%5,394 → 7,950
  10. 10Eastern Connecticut State University+36.5%4,756 → 6,491

Sources:IPEDS Admissions survey, Fall 2014 to Fall 2024;College Scorecard (enrollment), Fall 2014 to Fall 2024;IPEDS Fall Enrollment survey (distance education), Fall 2014 to Fall 2024About the data(built 2026-10-12; CPI retrieved 2026-10-12)

Top 10 and how it's ranked

Grew the most

, fall 2014 to fall 2024

Median college: −3.9% (18 colleges ranked)

  1. 1University of Connecticut-Stamford+82.0%1,336 → 2,432
  2. 2Sacred Heart University+44.5%4,904 → 7,087
  3. 3Fairfield University+39.9%3,841 → 5,373
  4. 4Yale University+23.5%5,473 → 6,758
  5. 5University of Connecticut+10.1%18,016 → 19,835
  6. 6Wesleyan University+5.5%2,907 → 3,067
  7. 7Connecticut College+3.3%1,875 → 1,937
  8. 8Quinnipiac University+0.4%6,503 → 6,531

Sources:College Scorecard (enrollment), Fall 2014 to Fall 2024;IPEDS Fall Enrollment survey (distance education), Fall 2014 to Fall 2024About the data(built 2026-10-12; CPI retrieved 2026-10-12)

Top 8 and how it's ranked

Students pay much less

(in 2023–24 dollars), 2013–14 to 2023–24

Median college: −12.7% (17 colleges ranked)

  1. 1Western Connecticut State University−26.2%$26,619 → $19,643
  2. 2Post University−25.4%$34,876 → $26,004
  3. 3Trinity College−18.0%$61,164 → $50,148
  4. 4Quinnipiac University−16.5%$50,044 → $41,769
  5. 5Connecticut College−15.1%$54,093 → $45,906
  6. 6University of Hartford−14.9%$38,810 → $33,044
  7. 7Central Connecticut State University−14.8%$25,864 → $22,037
  8. 8Eastern Connecticut State University−13.0%$27,782 → $24,162
  9. 9University of New Haven−12.7%$42,830 → $37,385
  10. 10Albertus Magnus College−9.4%$38,164 → $34,560

Sources:IPEDS Institutional Characteristics survey, 2013–14 to 2023–24;IPEDS Student Financial Aid survey, 2013–14 to 2023–24;College Scorecard (enrollment), Fall 2013 to Fall 2024;inflation: BLS CPI-U, school-year averagesAbout the data(built 2026-10-12; CPI retrieved 2026-10-12)

Top 10 and how it's ranked

Public research universities

Connecticut's public R1 and R2 universities (Carnegie 2025), with their undergraduate change over the same window. No classification in the data means "flagship," so this is simply the state's public research universities.

How this was measured

  • Which colleges. Colleges with 300 or more undergraduates in both fall 2014 and fall 2024: 23 of 26 Connecticut colleges. It's a , so colleges entering or leaving the data don't look like change.
  • Average total cost is an academic-year figure, one year behind fall: 2013–14 to 2023–24, after inflation.
  • Out-of-state shares are collected in even-numbered falls only; odd years are gaps, not zeros.
  • Totals and medians both appear because they can diverge: a state's total can fall more (or less) than its median college when its biggest colleges move differently.
  • No policy attribution. This page shows what changed, not why; a state's mix of public, private, and for-profit colleges, and its system policies, aren't broken out as causes.
  • First-years crossing state lines is a single snapshot, fall 2024, over campus-based colleges only: colleges that fall, for-profit colleges, and campuses that merged or split are left out. It's the newest fall the site's per-college home-state tables cover, not this page's ten-year window.

Sources:College Scorecard (enrollment), Fall 2014 to Fall 2024;IPEDS Admissions survey, Fall 2014 to Fall 2024;IPEDS Institutional Characteristics survey, 2014–15 to 2023–24;IPEDS Student Financial Aid survey, 2014–15 to 2023–24;IPEDS Fall Enrollment survey (part C, residence of first-time students), Fall 2014 to Fall 2024;inflation: BLS CPI-U, school-year averagesAbout the data(built 2026-10-12; CPI retrieved 2026-10-12)