“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world,” the great Nelson Mandela once said. Given that transformative power, we’re constantly striving to ensure that our children are receiving the best academic training possible.
Yet we know that the quality of education varies greatly across the suburbs and urban centers of the U.S.—a shame, given its indisputable impact on economic prosperity and general wellbeing.
A newly-released study by WalletHub.com puts that disparity on clear display once again. Taking the 150 largest metros in the U.S., the personal finance site ranked the most and least educated cities in America for 2016. The results are based on a series of metrics, including the percentage of adults with a high school diploma and higher degrees, the quality of the public school and college systems, and performance disparities among races and genders.
Ann Arbor, Michigan came in at No. 1. The city has the highest percentage of adults with some form of college degree, WalletHub found. It was followed by the Washington, D.C. metro area and San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, California, where the quality of universities outshines all others.
On the flip-side, McAllen-Edinburgh-Mission, Texas was ranked as the least educated metro in America. It was followed by two other Texas areas (Brownsville-Harlingen and Visalia-Porterville). Bakersfield, which has the lowest percentage of high school graduates, came in fourth from the bottom and Modesto rounded out the bottom five.
Read more about the most and least educated cities in America and see a full list here.