Top 10 Most Educated Cities in US

Parent Cafe
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<p>Just looked up my home town on the Census Bureau’s Quick Facts web site. 83% of adults over the age of 25 have a bachelors degree or higher. I knew there were many highly educated people living there, but I didn’t realize it was this high.</p>

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<p>Having gone to school in Boulder (eons ago) it is beautiful and a lot of grads never leave. That doesn’t mean they are all doing work commensurate with their educational achievements. That being said, there are lots of tech companies, the U is a huge employer and things like NCAR (National Center for Atmospheric Research) which attract highly educated persons. IBM also had a facility right outside of Boulder when I lived there. </p>

<p><a href=“Boulder, Colo., a Magnet for High-Tech Start-Ups - The New York Times”>Boulder, Colo., a Magnet for High-Tech Start-Ups - The New York Times;

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<p>stark’s list was for graduate degrees.</p>

<p>If we go by states, it’s typically CT, MA, NH.</p>

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<p>BCEagle91, do you have a link? I am trying to find the info and that’s not what I found. I would expect all three of those states to rank highly but would be surprised if that was the distribution and Md I would expect Md to rank higher than 1-2 of those. </p>

<p>This Fox article from 2012 has Mass then Md for grad degrees (but doesn’t specify past that):
[America?s</a> Best (and Worst) Educated States | Fox Business](<a href=“http://www.foxbusiness.com/personal-finance/2012/10/15/americas-best-and-worst-educated-states/]America?s”>http://www.foxbusiness.com/personal-finance/2012/10/15/americas-best-and-worst-educated-states/)</p>

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<p>It did not surprise me to see Boulder on the list. I live nearby, and Boulder is known to have a lot of PhD residents. As said earlier, some are just here because they like it… not because they are utilizing all of their education.</p>

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<p>Found it by state:
[Education</a> - The 2012 Statistical Abstract - U.S. Census Bureau](<a href=“http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/cats/education.html]Education”>http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/cats/education.html)</p>

<p>States where over 10% of the population has grad degrees as of the 2009 census. Note that it’s not even close. If DC were a state, it would be far and away ranked #1 with its 28% of residents earning grad degrees. </p>

<p>Mass 16.4
Md 16
CT 15.5
VA 14.1
NY 14
VT 13.3
NJ 12.9
CO 12.7
RI and IL 11.7
DE 11.4
NH 11.2
WA 11.1
NM and OR 10.4
AL and MN 10.3
KS and PA 10.2</p>

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<p>I posted two links. One was for AA degrees or higher. The other was grad degrees.</p>

<p>If Fremont was included with SF, why isn’t Ann Arbor part of Detroit?</p>

<p>Why isn’t Boulder and Denver linked?</p>

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<p>Agree that lumping SF together with Fremont does seem weird. I could SF/Berkeley/Oakland. That would make more sense.</p>

<p>Fremont is much closer to San Jose than SF.</p>

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<p>I’m guessing they are using the standard metropolitan statistical areas and places like Boulder have their own and are not included in Denver’s MSA. </p>

<p>Here is the map. </p>

<p><a href=“http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6c/Metropolitan_and_Micropolitan_Statistical_Areas_of_the_United_States_and_Puerto_Rico.gif[/url]”>http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6c/Metropolitan_and_Micropolitan_Statistical_Areas_of_the_United_States_and_Puerto_Rico.gif&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>Dstark - have you been to Boulder? It makes no sense to link it w Denver.</p>

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<p>I understand, Pizzagirl.</p>

<p>It makes no sense to link Fremont with SF either.</p>

<p>"Agree that lumping SF together with Fremont does seem weird. I could SF/Berkeley/Oakland. That would make more sense.</p>

<p>Fremont is much closer to San Jose than SF."</p>

<p>Yeah…</p>

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<p>San Francisco - Oakland - Fremont =
example of government bureaucratease, perhaps
Doesn’t make sense to me, either</p>

<p>Our local radio and tv stations typically state their call names/letters and then
“San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose”</p>

<p>Anyway, we have pockets of very highly educated as well as totally uneducated people here in the SF Bay Area.</p>

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<p>[States</a> With The Highest Percentage Of College Degree Holders (PHOTOS)](<a href=“States With The Highest Percentage Of College Degree Holders (PHOTOS) | HuffPost College”>States With The Highest Percentage Of College Degree Holders (PHOTOS) | HuffPost College)</p>

<p>ma 49.6%
ct 46.6%
nh 46%
co 45.3%
nd 45.2%
mn 45%
nj 44.6%
md 43.9%
ny 43.7%
vt 43.6%</p>

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<p>The 3 CT cities make no sense either. Norwalk is an hour away from New Haven. All three of them are extremely poor and not educated, perhaps they are counting the surrounding affluent suburbs?</p>

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<p>Hmmm… BCEagle, your list doesn’t refer to grad degrees (as you wrote), just college degrees but that list (which Huffington Post says it got from the Lumina Foundation) does not coincide with the Census Bureau’s list of holders of Bachelor’s degrees. I wonder where the Lumina Foundation got its numbers or what the difference is? I wonder if they’re including 2-year degrees? </p>

<p>Here are the census figures on Bachelor’s degree holders by state as of 2009*:</p>

<p>(Once again, DC, if a state, would be #1 with 48.5)
MA 38.2
CO 35.9
MD 35.7
CT 35.6
VI 34
VT 33.1
NY 32.5
NH 32
MI 31.5
WA 31
IL 30.6
RI 30.5 </p>

<ul>
<li>I found an error in my grad degree list. AL shouldn’t be on there but CA, at 10.7, should. I was finding it a bit hard to keep the rows straight.</li>
</ul>

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<p>Absolutely right. Boulder is its own MSA. Ann Arbor is its own MSA. Fremont is not its own MSA because it’s not enough of a center of anything; it’s a suburb. It’s a fair question whether it’s a suburb of Oakland, of San Francisco, or of San Jose, but it’s not unreasonable for the Census Bureau to conclude that Fremont is sufficiently closely tied to (and subordinate to) Oakland, and Oakland is sufficiently tied to (and subordinate to) San Francisco, that they should be treated as a single MSA, centered on San Francisco, the unquestioned job and administrative hub. Ann Arbor does not have that same relationship to Detroit, nor does Boulder have that same relationship to Denver.</p>