Map: Proportion of American Adults with College Degrees

Ashley Thorne

The Chronicle of Higher Education has an interactive U.S. map showing, by state, the proportion of adults aged 25-34 who hold college degrees. In the U.S. overall, 37.8% of adults aged 25-34 have college degrees. The Chronicle does not specify whether this is for 2-year or 4-year degrees. According to the map, the most-educated state is Massachusetts (53.4%, and the District of Columbia tops that at 63.5%), and the least educated states are Nevada and West Virginia (28.2% each). Click here to go to the interactive map. 

Achieving President Obama's goal of becoming the world's most-educated (not best-educated) nation will require approximately doubling the size of higher education. NAS writers have expressed some opinions on this plan (see links above), but what do you think? Should America expand higher education to the extent necessary to reach President Obama's goal?

  • Share

Most Commented

July 30, 2024

1.

Don’t Cry for Them, Academia

The dark secret of anti-Semitism is that ignorance alone cannot explain it away or absolve those who adhere to it. If anything, the most vivid episodes of history’s anti-Semitism have......

June 6, 2024

2.

Backlash: Sometimes It Hurts So Good

We have undermined the leftist status quo in higher education for decades with the persistence of Morlocks. You really should be more alarmed about us than you are. Not that I’m going......

August 6, 2024

3.

An Elephant Walks into Class

An assessment of the Republican higher education platform....

Most Read

May 15, 2015

1.

Where Did We Get the Idea That Only White People Can Be Racist?

A look at the double standard that has arisen regarding racism, illustrated recently by the reaction to a black professor's biased comments on Twitter....

September 6, 2024

2.

Professor Alleges "Widespread" Discriminatory Hiring Coverup at University of Washington

Audio acquired by the National Association of Scholars describes allegations of coverup race-based hiring coverup at the University of Washington...

October 12, 2010

3.

Ask a Scholar: What is the True Definition of Latino?

What does it mean to be Latino? Are only Latin American people Latino, or does the term apply to anyone whose language derived from Latin?...