The vital role of higher education in developing the workforce is a topic of many discussions, but what is often overlooked is its importance as an economic sector in NH. The economic impact of NH’s colleges and universities reaches into the billions. A 2024 report by the New England Board of Higher Education (NEBHE) estimates the economic impact of the higher education sector in NH amounted to $1.4 billion in 2023. That includes jobs created, federal taxes and direct and indirect spending by the 34 colleges and universities in the state, which have over 215,000 students in NH.
However, a 2023 report from Parker Philips, a consulting firm that provides economic analysis, states the economic impact of the University System of NH (USNH) alone—which includes the University of NH, Keene State College and Plymouth State University—is $3.7 billion.
Katie Singer, NEBHE’s director of policy and research, explains the difference between the USNH study and the NHBHE study, saying, “Full economic impact studies like USNH’s study take detailed information from a local perspective bringing in things like capital expenditures and other calculations. Ours was a conservative regional estimate.”
Regardless of which number you look at, it is evident colleges and universities play a major role in NH’s economy even beyond workforce development. “When you think about Keene State College or Plymouth State, if they were not in those regions this would have a dramatic impact on the economy of those areas,” says Catherine Provencher, chancellor of the University System of NH (USNH) and former chief administrative officer and vice chancellor for financial affairs. “We’re graduating thousands of students every year who are entering our workforce and driving our economy. That’s the key.”
While those numbers are impressive, colleges and universities face several challenges to their own financial wellbeing as well as their ability to meet the state’s workforce needs. According to the NH Fiscal Policy Institute (NHFPI), future workforce constraints in key industries that require college degrees—such as registered nurses, general and operations managers, accountants and auditors, and software developers—could be “disproportionately severe due to a lack of qualified job candidates.”
Combine that with the lowest state support for public education in the nation and an aging workforce, and it is clear big changes are needed in higher ed to help create a more robust economy.
New Hampshire Department of Business and Economic Affairs Commissioner Taylor Caswell describes the state’s economy as a triangle of academia, government and industry that must all fit together to maintain economic growth. “We’ve been very supportive of academic institutions as they’ve worked to make themselves part of the economic infrastructure of state systems,” Caswell says, explaining the state has been looking at more ways to connect NH’s Community College System and USNH with K-12 systems by providing high school students with a head start on earning higher education degrees. “Moving those credits in that direction and having the flexibility within the system to do so makes sense with what employers want to see to create a healthy workforce pipeline,” he says.
Affordability and the Enrollment Cliff
Challenges to higher education include high tuition, low state funding, and a smaller pool of K-12 students to choose from over the next 10 years. All of this means colleges and universities must work harder to maintain enrollment by making sure families and students understand their return on investment in a college education while keeping that education affordable.
NHFPI Senior Policy Analyst Nicole Heller says low spending on higher education can contribute to high tuition and the out-migration of students looking for a better deal. Despite the critical role colleges and universities play as a workforce pipeline as well as their overall economic impact on the state’s economy, NH’s investment in the sector pales by comparison. The Granite State spends less than any other state in the nation on higher education—just under $4,000 per full-time enrolled student. The second lowest state for higher education funding is Vermont, which spends around $5,600 per full time enrolled student. The national average is about $11,000. On a per capita basis, NH appropriates $125 while the national average is $378.
“Spending is consistently, across multiple metrics, lower,” Heller says. “That means the burden of cost falls on families and the students and gives them incentive to find a better deal somewhere else or forgo their college education entirely.”
For those who leave the state for college, Heller says some may not come back because of workforce constraints, such as the challenge of finding affordable housing and childcare. “Coming back can be a challenge, just as it can be a challenge to move here,” she says.
And that is a huge problem for employers. Between 2022 and 2023 about 743,000 people were working in NH compared to about 760,000 prior to the pandemic, leaving fewer people to fill jobs that require a college degree.
On top of low spending, NH also faces a potential “enrollment cliff.” Nathan Grawe, an economist at Carleton College in Minnesota, forecasts the college-going population to drop nationally by 15 percentage points between 2025 and 2029 with decreases of more than 15% in the northeast.
Additionally, Phil Sletten, NHFPI research director, says there have been more deaths than births in NH for about five years. “We rely on in-migration for population growth and that’s not unique to New Hampshire,” he says. “Maine, which also had more deaths than births, grew faster than New Hampshire due to in-migration over the last three years.”
Low birth rates in the Northeast means fewer students to choose from for NH schools in an already competitive market. In NH about 40,300 fewer students were in public K-12 schools in 2022-2023 than during 2002-2003. And student enrollment has declined 13.6% since 2019 for all higher education institutions, according to a 2023 USNH financial report.
Pathways to Higher Ed
Nearly 56% of students come to NH’s public colleges and universities from other states, according to the same report based on data from 2020. “We are the largest in-migrator of young talent in the state,” Provencher says, explaining that meeting students where they are at with online course offerings and internships helps to keep them in state after graduating. “People are twice as likely to stay and work in our state if they become involved in internships. We work with business and industry to drive that.”
To keep the pipeline flowing, NH colleges and universities are creating internship opportunities, early college programs and pathways to four-year colleges and universities starting with community college.
Last year the Community College System of NH (CCSNH) served about 24,000 students. Of those, about 11,750 were enrolled in core credit courses in-person and online, according to Mark Rubinstein, chancellor of CCSNH. “Over 10,000 students are actually high school students participating in early college programs,” he says, explaining that students who complete courses with grades of C or better can typically have those courses and credits transferred to most four-year degree programs. Another 2,300 students are enrolled in non-credit and apprenticeship programs, Rubinstein adds.
Early enrollment “can translate to tens-of-thousands of dollars in college cost-savings for middle class families not eligible for federal financial aid. It can also help avoid the weight of college debt,” Rubinstein says. “And those students can also find their way into the workforce and begin earning that much sooner.”
Completing an associate degree before moving into a bachelor’s program can save a person thousands of dollars annually, says Sarmad Saman, president of White Mountains Community College. “That person could get the same level of education at any of the other state institutions but for a quarter of the cost for the whole degree program. And they can be working after their associate degree when they finish their bachelor’s degree,”
he says.
Rubinstein points to the transfer pathways program as a key program that provides students an affordable access point as it allows students who complete an associate’s degree to seamlessly transfer credits to both public and many private schools in the state. Between 2016 and 2022, 4,194 students transferred from CCSNH institutions to USNH institutions, which equates to roughly 600 students annually. Additionally, 6,600 students who participated in CCSNH’s early college opportunities pursued degrees within the University System of NH, Rubinstein says.
So far, seven colleges and universities have committed to simplifying transfers for students who earn associate degrees through CCSNH and want to pursue a bachelor’s degree program at a four-year institution in NH.
The colleges included in the pathways program include Keene State, Plymouth State University (PSU), Colby-Sawyer College, Franklin Pierce University, UNH Manchester, the UNH College of Professional Studies and New England College. They are part of the New England Transfer Guarantee program of the New England Board of Higher Education.
Rubinstein says the missing link in setting students on various higher education pathways is the advising element. “And it may not just be advising for students,” he says. “It may in fact be advising for families or parents who have a role in guiding the direction and the aspirations of their children.”
Rubinstein says the need for advising is most apparent in manufacturing. “There is a challenge getting students to look at the opportunities for programs like manufacturing, in part, because often parents have a dim view of manufacturing,” he says. “Often, they’re not fully appreciating that manufacturing involves microchips and bio fabrication in cleanrooms. Producing tissue fabric or 3D printing human organs is not science fiction anymore. We really are on the cusp of these kinds of things and it’s going to require a strong workforce in manufacturing.”
Partnerships and Internships
Provencher of USNH says business partners are critical for providing students with valuable internships and community connections. She cites as examples GreenSource, a producer of sustainable circuit boards in North Charlestown; LONZA, the pharmaceutical manufacturer at Pease International Tradeport; and Fidelity Investments. “Greenspace is an amazing, advanced manufacturing company,” she says. “We also have a strong partnership with LONZA and Fidelity who hire a lot of our graduates after completing internships.”
Mount Prospect Academy, a residential treatment program for adolescents, provides internships to college and university students. James Carey, recruitment director for the academy, who served as a teacher, athletic director, and high school basketball coach at Plymouth Regional High School for 30 years, says he knows how important community relationships and internships can be for sustaining growth in college towns and for the state’s economy.
Mount Prospect Academy employs about 800 people at multiple sites in NH, including Hampton, Keene, Plymouth and its surrounding towns. Partnering with Plymouth State University, Carey has helped create internships and other work opportunities for many PSU students over the years. “I’ve used those connections through the athletic world that I’ve had for 30-plus years to get on college campuses,” he says. “We always need counselors in the dorms, as well as educators and mental health clinicians.”
Carey says he often looks for students in a range of majors to fill internship positions—from education to sociology, psychology and business. “I’d say of the five programs we have around Plymouth around 50% include ties to PSU,” he says.
Creating Bridges for the Future
Debby Scire, executive director of the Campus Compact for NH (CCNH), which includes 20 member organizations, says she is concerned about the drop in college-eligible high school seniors in the next decade. To counter this, CCNH is bringing college professionals together to share resources. It also runs a federally funded program intended to raise awareness and readiness for people considering college. The program involves placing college graduates with some experience in high schools and middle schools to work directly with school counselors, teachers and administrators.
Scire says the ratio of school counselors to students in NH is 1 to 199, which is better than the national average of 1 to 385, but is still a lot of students for one counselor. “This needs attention, especially for first-generation students because you can’t start too young,” she says. “A lot of decisions are made before students even get into middle school courses today.”
Scire says creating a financially stable future requires training and education. “There isn’t any other proven strategy for students to become part of the middle class,” she says. “Now you can graduate high school and get a job without college because the economy is strong, but those jobs won’t always provide you with wages to support a family.”
Looking to the future, Rubinstein says it is crucial for higher education institutions to help fill workforce gaps throughout NH’s occupational landscape and to “capitalize on every bit of talent and ambition people have to fit into the opportunities they see in front of them that might require an educational bridge.”
“Whether it’s prison education, as an extreme example, or working adults who need the flexibility of online courses, or adults who are working in one career who recognize a calling in another, we must meet their life needs for scheduling and convenience and flexibility and affordability,” he says.
Rubinstein adds that employers also need people with soft skills—such as communication and conflict resolution—and that the benefit of liberal arts shouldn’t be overlooked. Skills like critical thinking and understanding others’ perspectives are “an incredible value add,” to the workforce pipeline he says.
“You can be a very good doer. But if you’re going to be a leader, if you’re going to be a manager, if you’re going to collaborate and produce something that’s more than just your own personal contribution, these skills are needed.”
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