Huntsville is the 17th most educated city in USA

Huntsville was found to be the 17th most educated city in the United States by WalletHub in a recent study.

They compared the largest 150 metropolitan statistical areas, and assigned them scores based on 11 key metrics. Scores were out of 100, with 80 possible points coming from “educational attainment” and 20 points from “quality of education + obtainment gap.”

Huntsville ranked 22nd overall in educational attainment and 10th in quality of the education + obtainment gap, with an overall score of 67.69/100. In case you were wondering, Ann Arbor, Michigan, was ranked first with an overall score of 94.48.

Huntsville’s score reflects our massive aerospace and federal contracting sector, as well as the quality of our public school systems and universities.

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How Huntsville was ranked 17th most educated in USA

To reiterate: a city’s total score came from the combination of two categories: educational attainment (80 points) and quality of education + attainment gap (20 points). You can find the complete methodology here.

Educational attainment refers to the number of individuals holding certain thresholds of educational goals, ranging from high school diplomas to graduate and professional degrees. Quality of education ranks learning institutions on a 5-point scale, and the attainment gap details the educational distance minority groups experience when measured against their counterparts.

Here’s a rundown of how we scored in each individual category:

Educational attainment scores in Huntsville, AL

• Share of adults aged 25+ with a high school diploma or higher: 20 points
• Share of adults aged 25+ with some college experience or an associate’s degree or higher: 20 points
• Share of adults aged 25+ with a bachelor’s degree or higher: 20 points
• Share of adults aged 25+ with a graduate or professional degree: 20 points

Quality of education + attainment gap scores in Huntsville, AL

• Quality of public school systems: 4.44 points
• Average quality of universities: 4.44 points
• Students enrolled in top 791 universities per capita: 2.22 points
• Number of summer learning opportunites: 2.22 points
• Percentage of Black bachelor’s degree holders to their White counterparts: 2.22 points
• Difference between the percentage of female bachelor’s degree holders and the percentage of their male counterparts: 2.22 points
• Education equality index score (how well low-income students do compared to all students): 2.22 points

Clearly, there is an emphasis on having highly educated adults in any given city, but that is not the only metric that matters. Huntsville would not have placed so highly if not for our exceptional scores in quality of education + our commitment to closing the attainment gap.

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