www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13278190
It's Seattle 47 percent of city's adults hold bachelor's degrees, tops in the nation Seattle smarts Robert Sumner / Getty Images Nearly half of Seattle's adults hold bachelor's degrees, the strongest proportion of college-educated residents in any big city. By By G Scott Thomas The Business Journals Which community boasts the highest concentration of brainpower - and therefore can claim to be America's smartest big city? Seattle is second to Washington, DC, in the share of people with advanced diplomas. Twenty-one percent of Washington's adults have earned graduate or professional degrees, followed by Seattle at 17 percent. com study, which ranks the relative brainpower of 53 large communities. com analyzed the educational levels of adults in nearly 16,000 cities, towns, villages, boroughs and unincorporated areas. Communities were ranked in three population categories, based on a formula that rewards places with heavy concentrations of college graduates.
Albuquerque The rankings reflect each community's collective brainpower, which is tied to its residents' abilities to innovate, create, compete - and make money. A worker with a graduate degree earns 45 percent more, on average, than a colleague with a bachelor's degree, and 167 percent more than someone who never went beyond high school, according to figures released last year by the Census Bureau. com study found that America's brainpower is concentrated in technology centers, national and state capitals, college towns and affluent suburbs. Seattle, San Francisco and Austin rank first, second and third among large communities because they're the only ones where more than 40 percent of adults have bachelor's degrees.
The study found that Miami has the lowest brainpower of any large community. Just 16 percent of Miami's adults have earned bachelor's degrees, which is 31 percentage points behind Seattle's rate. Santa Ana and East Los Angeles - both in California - rank last in the other two categories.
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