While some California metro areas rank high in a recent report on the nation’s most and least educated regions, a larger share falls lower on the list.
The personal finance website WalletHub analyzed 150 of the most populated metropolitan areas across two dimensions — educational attainment and quality of education and attainment gap — to identify the most and least educated areas in the nation.
“Higher education doesn’t guarantee better financial opportunities in the future, but it certainly correlates with it,” Chip Lupo, a WalletHub analyst, said in a news release. “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.”
Here’s what to know about WalletHub’s analysis, including what it found for California metro areas.
Most educated US metros, per WalletHub report
Two California metro areas ranked among the top 10 most educated in the nation: San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara and San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley, according to WalletHub.
“The San Jose, California metro area is the third-most educated in the country, with over 55% of the population ages 25 and older having at least a bachelor’s degree and nearly 28% having an advanced degree,” WalletHub said.
The metro area also ranks in third for “university quality and has nearly a 1.6% gap between the share of women and men who have at least a bachelor’s degree.”
The San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley metro area landed 6th on WalletHub’s report, ranking 8th for educational attainment and 7th for quality of education and attainment gap.
Here’s the top 10 most educated metro areas in the nation, along with their overall scores, according to WalletHub:
Least educated US metros, according to WalletHub
Six California metros ranked among the least educated in the nation in WalletHub’s report. With the exception of Salinas on the Central Coast, most are located in the Central Valley. These cities also have smaller shares of adults with bachelor’s and advanced degrees.
Here’s the 10 least educated metro areas in the nation, along with their overall scores, according to WalletHub:
Full list of California metros and rankings
Five California metro areas ranked in the top half of WalletHub’s list, while 10 fell in the bottom half, including three that placed in the bottom five.
Here’s a full list of metro areas in California included in WalletHub’s analysis, along with their rankings and overall scores.
WalletHub’s methodology for determining least/most educated US cities
To determine the nation’s most and least educated cities, WalletHub compared the 150 most populated metro areas across two dimensions: education attainment and quality of education and attainment gap.
Those two dimensions were analyzed using 11 factors. For education attainment some of those factors included share of adults 25 and older who held specific degrees, while for quality of education and attainment gap the analysis included quality of public schools, quality of colleges, the number of summer learning opportunities, the number of students per capita enrolled in top universities, gender education gap and racial education gap.
From there, each of the 11 metrics was graded on a 100-point scale, with 100 being the highest possible score. The company then calculated the weighted average to derive an overall score for each metropolitan area, then ranked them accordingly.
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Which California regions are considered most — and least —educated
Reporting by Daniella Segura, USA TODAY NETWORK / Palm Springs Desert Sun
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Daniella Segura, USA TODAY NETWORK | USA TODAY Network
