A study reports that recent college graduates from New Hampshire face the highest average debt of $31,048 (The Boston Globe, May 27, 2012). A researcher from Connecticut wants to determine how recent undergraduates from that state fare.

He collects data on debt from 40 recent undergraduates. A portion of the data is shown in the accompanying table. Assume that the population standard deviation is $5,000.

Debt

24,040

19,153

⋮

29,329

a. Use Excel to construct the 95% confidence interval for the mean debt of all undergraduates from Connecticut.

b. Use the 95% confidence interval to determine if the debt of Connecticut undergraduates differs from that of New Hampshire undergraduates.