A legislative working group created to explore student debt relief in Connecticut took an unexpected turn last week when one of its co-chairs, Rep. Eleni Kavros DeGraw (D-Avon), suggested that residents without college degrees are a drag on society.
The Meeting
The Relief for Connecticut Borrowers Working Group, co-chaired by Kavros DeGraw and Rep. Corey Paris (D-Stamford), convened August 29 to bring together lawmakers, higher-education officials, and advocates. Its stated purpose: to develop policy recommendations to help student loan borrowers.
But midway through the meeting, Rep. Kavros DeGraw shifted from policy discussion to a forceful defense of higher education as the only reliable path to success.
“The most important thing is to go to college in order for [people] to have long-term earning power and to be able to start building generational wealth and to succeed.” she said, implying that opportunity begins and ends with a degree.
She then drew a sharper line: residents who do not attend college, she argued, often end up on public assistance — and become “a burden on everyone else.”
“If folks aren’t going to college and getting the jobs that…college educations fill, what jobs are they ending up in?” she asked. “They’re ending up in jobs that do not pay them enough. And then they do become, quote, unquote, a burden on everyone else because of the services they might need.”
She added, “It might be SNAP. It might be, you know, some other, some kind of housing voucher… whatever, Medicaid, et cetera.”
Reality Check
Her comments implied that non-degree workers — plumbers, electricians, truckers, and others — are more likely to rely on government benefits. Yet Connecticut’s own data suggests the challenge is more nuanced. Roughly 518,500 state residents (about 14% of the population) carry student loans, averaging $36,837 each and totaling $19.3 billion. The majority hold relatively modest debt: nearly 14% owe less than $5,000; almost one-quarter owe between $20,000 and $40,000; only 2.3% carry more than $200,000.
Instead of tackling why college costs continue to soar, lawmakers have leaned on symbolic relief programs such as the Student Loan Reimbursement Program (SLRP), which offers up to $20,000 in reimbursements over four years in exchange for 50 hours of volunteer service and meeting income and residency eligibility requirements. Critics argue that such programs fail to address the underlying drivers of debt.
A Different Perspective
Rep. Tammy Nuccio (R-Tolland) cut to the heart of the issue: the cost of college itself.
“We can’t have…$50,000, $60,000 a year…for these degrees,” and pretend a taxpayer funded reimbursement fixes it. Nuccio pointed to UConn’s recent elimination of under-enrolled programs as evidence of inefficiency, arguing that reforms should begin with affordability and accountability. She cautioned against piecemeal fixes, saying, “we can’t cherry pick here. We have to be looking at, how do we make education more affordable for more people without having to incur hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt.”
She also emphasized practical alternatives. Community colleges, with guaranteed transfer into Connecticut State Colleges and Universities (CSCU) programs, offer students a more affordable path to a degree. And before students take on large debts, Nuccio argued, “we also have to look at… educating people on, what does it mean when you’re 18 years old and you’re taking out, you know, $60,000 in student loans for a college experience? What does this mean from a payback perspective? Instead of getting to the point where we’re looking for forgiveness, how will we get into this mess?”
The Irony
Perhaps most striking is the political backdrop. Skilled-trade unions — representing carpenters, electricians, linemen, and other non-degree workers — endorsed Kavros DeGraw’s reelection campaign in 2024. Groups such as the Connecticut State Building Trades Council and CWA District 1 lent their support. Yet in this working group session, Kavros DeGraw implied those same workers are “burdens” likely to depend on SNAP or Medicaid.
The reality is the opposite. Non-degree workers keep Connecticut running — building houses, maintaining infrastructure, staffing logistics, and paying the taxes that fund state programs like SLRP. Far from drains on the system, they are essential to it.
The Bigger Question
The working group’s charge was to explore debt relief, but its co-chair’s remarks underscored a broader policy divide. Should lawmakers double down on costly relief schemes that treat debt as inevitable, or should they address the underlying drivers — tuition inflation, institutional inefficiency, and the lack of affordable pathways?
For now, the state’s message to the trades is muddled: Connecticut needs their labor, relies on their taxes, and benefits from their productivity — yet one of the very leaders tasked with shaping policy on affordability labeled them a “burden.”
