If your mantra is "surround yourself with people smarter than you are," some US states may be a better bet than others, per WalletHub, which looked at the data to see which states offer more in the way of education. The site examined 18 metrics in two main categories: educational attainment, which looks at the share of adults 25 and older who have a high school diploma and various levels of college education; and quality of education—think blue-ribbon schools per capita, graduation rates for public high schools, and racial and gender gaps in educational attainment, among other factors. Here, the top and bottom 10:
Most educated
- Massachusetts (No. 1 in both "Educational Attainment," "Quality of Education" categories)
- Vermont
- Maryland
- Connecticut
- Colorado
- Virginia
- New Jersey
- New Hampshire
- Minnesota
- Washington
Least educated - Texas
- New Mexico (last in "Quality of Education" category)
- Kentucky
- Nevada
- Alabama
- Oklahoma
- Arkansas
- Louisiana
- Mississippi
- West Virginia (last in "Educational Attainment" category)
See how other states rank
here. (This is the
smartest city in America.)