With the average in-state cost of attendance at a four-year college down four percent over the last decade (adjusted for inflation), the personal-finance website WalletHub has released its report on 2025’s Most & Least Educated Cities in America, as well as expert commentary. Two California cities were in the top 10, while six cities in the Golden State were in the bottom 10 of the survey.
To determine where the most educated Americans are choosing to settle down, WalletHub compared the 150 largest U.S. metropolitan statistical areas, or MSAs, across 11 key metrics. The data set ranges from the share of adults aged 25 and older with a bachelor’s degree or higher to the racial education gap to the quality of the public-school system.
Ann Arbor, Michigan took the top spot as the Most Educated city in the study, followed by Durham, NC; Madison, WI; San Jose, CA; Washington, DC; Raleigh, NC; San Francisco, CA; Austin TX; Seattle, WA and Boston, Massachusetts rounding out the top ten.
At the other end of the spectrum, the bottom 10 in the study featured Beaumont, Texas at number 141; followed by Hickory, NC; Salinas, CA; Stockton, CA; Fresno, CA; Modesto, CA; Bakersfield, CA; McAllen, TX; Brownsville, TX and, last on the list, at number 150, the Least Educated city in the study was Visalia, California.
Key Stats
The Ann Arbor, MI, metro area has the highest share of bachelor’s degree holders aged 25 and older, which is 3.7 times higher than in Visalia, CA, the metro area with the lowest share.
The Oxnard, CA, metro area has the lowest racial education gap, with the share of black bachelor’s degree holders aged 25 and older at 30.55 percent, compared with 26.46 percent for their white counterparts, a difference of 4.09 percent favoring black people. For comparison, the national average for black people with the same attributes is 15.66 percent, and it is 23.89 percent for their white counterparts.
The Anchorage, AK, metro area has the lowest gender education gap, with the share of female bachelor’s degree holders aged 25 and older at 23.53 percent, compared with 19.13 percent for their male counterparts, a difference of 4.40 percent favoring women. For comparison, the national average for women with the same attributes is 21.75 percent, and it is 20.77 percent for their male counterparts.
“Higher education doesn’t guarantee better financial opportunities in the future, but it certainly correlates with it. The most educated cities provide good learning opportunities from childhood all the way through the graduate level. In addition to overall education, it’s also important to look at how well cities promote educational equality when it comes to race and gender,” WalletHub Analyst Chip Lupo said. “The Ann Arbor, Michigan, metro area is the most educated in the country, with nearly 96 percent of adults ages 25 and older having at least a high school diploma, over 58 percent having a bachelor’s degree and 31 percent having an advanced degree. Ann Arbor also ranks ninth in the country when it comes to the quality of its universities, and it has the 18th-best public-school system.”
To view the full report, visit: https://wallethub.com/edu/most-and-least-educated-cities/6656
Expert Commentary
Should local authorities target policies and programs to attract highly educated people? If so, what works?
“This, of course, is dependent upon local goals for long term development. Municipalities with their eyes on economic growth and a more diversified tax base should certainly prioritize this, but at this point, we have had more than a half century of policies both at the federal and state levels that encouraged first the growth of the suburbs and now the exurbs. It is hard to say ‘what works’ because policy decisions come with costs for people who already live in neighborhoods and communities. You can focus on developing infrastructure, housing, and businesses that attract young professionals with college degrees, but these are rarely done with an eye for retaining and improving the conditions for people who already live there. An array of policies that include anti-displacement initiatives and requiring mixed income housing as a basis for development are positive starting places. There are examples of this in Toronto, East Palo Alto, and Gowanus, but you must be intentional.”
Daniel Katz, Ph.D. – Assistant Professor, Seton Hall University
“The positive externalities of a highly educated workforce used to be accepted as a given, hence the near universal support for public K-12 schools and state universities throughout most of our history. The wider public understood that the benefits served more than just those with a degree. A focus on education instills values and knowledge that help citizens to be more informed and involved in public life. Education encourages a more vibrant economy. Politicians pay a lot of lip service toward achieving a highly educated population. They understand that such an issue is politically popular and has the support of business interests as well. More attention should be paid to less direct policy interventions than just sending more money to institutions of higher education. Helping to improve a community’s quality of life goes a long way to attracting industry from the outside. Employers look at such intangible factors as a variety of affordable housing options, recreational and cultural amenities, availability of quality healthcare, public safety, and of course, good K-12 schools. A synergy occurs when outside employers see that education is a priority and therefore are more likely to invest in cities in which their employees would enjoy living.”
Brett S. Sharp, Ph.D. – MPA Director; Professor, University of Central Oklahoma
What are the top education issues in 2025?
“Last October, I would have said the cost of higher education and the need to develop, pay, and retain excellent teachers. With threats to the existence of the federal Department of Education and questions about who – if anyone – would oversee and administer the Federal government’s small but critical P-12 policy and funding portfolio, I do not know. If Title 1 funds or funding for the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act, for example, are rescinded and put to other uses, everything is on the table.”
Daniel Katz, Ph.D. – Assistant Professor, Seton Hall University
“Artificial intelligence (AI) is perhaps the most important issue for education for the foreseeable future. The challenge of harvesting the potential of AI without sacrificing development of critical analysis skills by our young people is the most critical. Higher educational institutions should take this much more seriously since it can represent an existential threat to the perceived value of a degree. For example, are totally online university educations even worth anything after 2021 when the large language models became accessible to most students? Writing assignments, online exams, and discussion posts are the hallmarks of online education. The integrity of each of these is imperiled by students relying on AI to submit their assignments. The emergence of microcredentials offers alternate paths to workforce training, but it’s the Wild West in terms of quality. We should encourage accreditation systems to sort out the relative value of microcredentials.”
Brett S. Sharp, Ph.D. – MPA Director; Professor, University of Central Oklahoma
What is the most important step we can take as a country to develop a more educated and skilled workforce?
“We should devote much more attention to developing reading skills at the elementary level. Reading is perhaps the most efficient way to absorb new information. We can blame the recent pandemic as a major shock to our educational system, but the decline in reading skills over the past few decades was already very troubling. Instilling the love of reading is primary and is quite challenging in this era of immediate gratification by our electronic devices. It’s got to be more than just political sloganeering. Investing in K-12 sets the predicate for a highly educated workforce.”
Brett S. Sharp, Ph.D. – MPA Director; Professor, University of Central Oklahoma
“It has been taken as a given for decades that more education equals more economic security for individuals. However, that needs to come with an asterisk because while there is a ‘wage education gap’ evidenced by people with higher degrees making more money over their lifetimes, the inflation adjusted starting wage for BA holders has risen only a small amount since the 1980s. Where the wage benefit exists is in the collapse of wages for people without degrees during that same time. So while we can pursue policies that increase the education levels of our workforce, possibly through efforts to reduce the costs of a degree, we should also be clear minded about what the need is as a society and how to fill it. That is going to take looking at the entire cradle to workforce pipeline and thinking systemically. Labor markets, for example, that want highly skilled workers with expensive credentials need to attract those workers with wages and benefits that match their skills and scarcity in the workforce. On the P-12 side of the equation, we need fully funded schools staffed with well-paid teachers who stay and continue to improve regardless of zip code.”
Daniel Katz, Ph.D. – Assistant Professor, Seton Hall University
