All regional accents in my observation are becoming less noticeable among the young. I do not think it has to do with college, but more a result of mass communications in today’s world. Accents are acquired from ones peers more than ones parents. When I grew up, my peers were located pretty much in my regional area, the NYC area. I have a noticeable Irish NYC accent. My kids peers with the internet and all is a much wider area than what I experienced, thus they do not have a strong NYC area accent, even though they live in the same area I grew up in. Accents are acquired in ones adolescent stage, and will lessen if you move out of the area you grew up in. However, when you reach senior citizen status, the accent of your youth will creep back in. For example, my grandfather was born in raised in the north of England. By the time he was middle aged, you would have thought he was born in Ohio. In his seventies, the old accent came back to an extent, and really came back when he was angry.
What’s cuawfee?
I knew an older guy from the Netherlands and when he spoke english, his accent sounded like New York. It occurred to me that New York was once New Amsterdam and I think the original Dutch inhabitants gave New Yorkers their distinctive accent.
I was always struck by how much the accent from parts of New York are similar to accents in parts of New Orleans.
The so-called Yat accent has it's origins in the Irish Channel, an old working class neighborhood of the city.