The Most Educated Cities in America
About 35 percent of American adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher. In a small set of cities, that figure climbs above 90 percent, nearly triple the national rate. These are the most educated places in the country, and where they sit tells you a lot about how education, income, and geography line up in modern America. The full list runs through the most educated cities ranking.
The college-town artifact
The very top of the raw ranking is dominated by places that are not really cities at all. Clemson University, South Carolina reports 100 percent bachelor's attainment, and Stanford, California reports 92 percent, because these are census-designated places whose boundaries trace a college campus. The population is overwhelmingly students and faculty, so almost everyone either holds a degree or is in the process of earning one. It is a real number, but it measures a university, not a community.
To find the most educated places where people actually raise families and commute to work, you skip past the campuses. What you find is a tight cluster of wealthy suburbs.
The Northeast suburbs
Short Hills, New Jersey, an affluent commuter town outside New York, leads the residential list at 92.6 percent. Scarsdale, New York, the Westchester County suburb that has been shorthand for educated wealth for a century, comes in at 91.2 percent. Wellesley, Massachusetts, west of Boston, reports 89.0 percent.
These towns share a profile: expensive housing, top-rated public schools, and a workforce of lawyers, doctors, finance professionals, and executives who commute into a nearby major city. Education and income reinforce each other here. The degrees produce the incomes, and the incomes buy into the school districts that produce the next generation of degrees.
The Texas and Midwest entries
Texas places two cities near the top, both enclaves inside major metros. University Park reports 90.8 percent and West University Place 90.4 percent. As their names suggest, both grew up around universities, in Dallas and Houston respectively, and both are now among the wealthiest and most educated addresses in the state. They also appear on our list of the richest cities in Texas, which is no coincidence.
The Midwest contributes a few quieter entries. Glencoe, Illinois, on Chicago's North Shore, reports 88.2 percent, and Mountain Brook, Alabama, the affluent suburb of Birmingham, comes in at 88.6 percent, the highest in the Deep South.
The college towns that are real towns
A separate category is the genuine college town, where a major university anchors a real community rather than just filling a campus boundary. Hanover, New Hampshire, home to Dartmouth College, reports 89.2 percent across a town of about 8,500 people. Piedmont, California, a small wealthy city entirely surrounded by Oakland, reaches 88.4 percent and reflects the Bay Area's broader concentration of advanced degrees.
What educational attainment predicts
The reason this metric matters beyond bragging rights is that educational attainment is one of the most reliable leading indicators of a neighborhood's trajectory. Areas with rising degree shares tend to see income growth and home appreciation follow. The most educated cities are also, almost without exception, the highest-income ones, which is why this ranking overlaps so heavily with the richest cities list.
That connection is also why education is one of the metrics worth checking when you research a place to live. Our guide on using Census data to choose a neighborhood explains how to read attainment trends at the local level, and you can compare the degree share of any two cities with the Compare tool.
Sources
Figures in this article come from the following public datasets, accessed through CensusEasy:
- US Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-year estimates: census.gov/programs-surveys/acs
- US Census Bureau, Decennial Census (1990 and 2000 summary files): census.gov/programs-surveys/decennial-census.html
- CensusEasy methodology and inflation adjustments: censuseasy.com/methodology
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What is the most educated city in America?
Among genuine residential cities, Short Hills, New Jersey is the most educated, with about 92.6 percent of adults holding a bachelor's degree. Some college-campus census places like Clemson University report even higher rates, but those measure a campus rather than a community.
What percentage of Americans have a college degree?
About 35 percent of American adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher. The most educated cities reach above 90 percent, nearly triple the national rate.
Why are the most educated cities also the richest?
Educational attainment and income reinforce each other. Degrees produce higher incomes, and those incomes buy into the school districts and neighborhoods that produce the next generation of graduates, so the most educated cities are almost always among the highest-income ones.
