Studies have shown that Maryland college graduates have a much larger earning potential than non-graduates. Attending a college or university in Maryland and earning a degree is an investment in your future, and you need to think about a college education in those terms to justify the expense for a degree.
Maryland government and higher/secondary education system has a stake in either helping offset the cost of a college education, or helping students prepare for the rigors of study for a college degree. A good measure of how much Maryland government is helping subsidize a higher education is the percentage income it takes a family to send one of its members to school. The lower the percentage, the more Maryland is helping its citizens pay for higher education. The percentage of young and working adults who go to school in Maryland is also a good measure of how well Maryland education systems are preparing its citizens for a higher education degrees.
In Maryland, an average of 25% of a family's income is spent sending one of its members to school, which means that Maryland ranks #35 among the rest of the states in affordability. In terms of higher education, ie. college participation, 35% of Maryland's young adults and 4.40% of Maryland's working population, ranking #16 and #10 among the other states, respectively, enroll in higher education.*