Six California cities ranked among the top 10 least educated metropolitan areas in the United States, according to a report by WalletHub published on June 29.
Looking at the 150 most populated metro areas, the city of Visalia ranked as the second least educated, while Bakersfield was fourth, and Modesto, Fresno, Stockton, and Salinas followed. All six are in central California.
The other four metros that rounded out the top ten were all in Texas—McAllen-Edinburg-Mission, Brownsville-Harlingen, Beaumont-Port Arthur, and El Paso, at first, third, ninth, and tenth least educated, respectively.
“Higher education doesn’t guarantee better financial opportunities in the future, but it certainly correlates with it,” WalletHub analyst Chip Lupo said in the report. “The most educated cities provide good learning opportunities from childhood all the way through the graduate level.”
To determine the ranking, WalletHub equally factored in the share of adults at least 25 years old who have a high school diploma or higher, who have at least some college experience, who have a bachelor’s degree or higher, and who have a graduate or professional degree.
Visalia ranked last among the 150 metros in percent of bachelor’s degree holders and percent of graduate or professional degree holders. It ranked 107th highest in median annual household income, and there appeared to be a general correlation between income and education rates across the nation.
However, Visalia still had a lower poverty rate than the state average—11.3 percent compared to 11.8 percent, according to U.S. Census data—and Stockton ranked as having the 31st highest median household income while Salinas ranked as 26th highest, though those two cities were near the bottom in education.
Education and income rate correlations may not reflect California’s higher cost of living and regional economic structures, such as the Central Valley’s reliance on agriculture, an industry that has not historically required higher education the same way other California hubs have, such as Silicon Valley.
The San Jose metro, home to Silicon Valley, ranked as the fourth most educated in the United States.
WalletHub said that more than 55 percent of the San Jose metro’s population over the age of 25 have at least a bachelor’s degree, while nearly 28 percent have an advanced degree. It also ranked third for university quality. San Jose is near Stanford University and has Santa Clara University and San Jose State University in the center of the metro.
The nearby San Francisco metro area, which is home to the University of California—Berkeley, ranked as the eighth most educated.
