this post was submitted on 17 Jan 2025
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[–] [email protected] 66 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Neat data, but it seems like starting the coloring at 40% is really high.

I'm curious what this would look like if they counted counties with 25% and above degree requirements.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 month ago (1 children)

not really, that's roughly the percentage for the entire population of the country.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Exactly. The less educated population matters just as much as the more educated. Those people are not represented in this map.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 month ago (1 children)

here's all the counties by education attainment. high school, 4-year college, graduate/professional degree.

source of the visuals:
www.smartick.com/data/visualizing-the-most-and-least-educated-counties-in-america/

using data from the census:
https://www.census.gov/data/developers/data-sets/acs-5year.html

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Why would they be? The map is clearly not about that information. That would be a map titled “percent people 25+ WITHOUT a bachelor’s degree.”

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[–] [email protected] 64 points 1 month ago (4 children)

This is somewhat a "people live in cities" graph, but not as stark of one I expected. Not all big cities are so educated, plus there are a lot of rural places that draw in a surprising number of people with advanced degrees.

Still, I'm amused that Interstate 29 in specific lights up like a string of Christmas lights.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Based on the states I know, some of the surprising rural areas are where state universities are.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 month ago

"People live in cities and get degrees in college towns" map.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

I live in such a place. You'd think it would be a bluish county because of it, but it's deeply red.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Oklahoma only has 1 county lit up, and it's where a state university is, OSU. But it's ranked lower nationally than OU (#196 vs #132). Both are in otherwise small towns, basically overrun by their respective colleges. Anecdotally, Norman (OU) is known to have nothing in town, but Stillwater (OSU) has it's own subculture and town pride.

I'm curious how many of these counties just contain college towns vs how many actually might attract highly educated people.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Norman is effectively a suburb of OKC. Also it's by county so all the stuff actually closer to OKC will out weigh the college town there.

It does appear to be mostly college towns and some high education cities though

[–] HobbitFoot 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Yeah. It is interesting that Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Phoenix, and Miami aren't on here while Salt Lake City, Denver, and Atlanta are very visible.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Denver vs Vegas and LA isn't surprising. Cities built on industries that don't require education won't be massively educated

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Yeah, interesting that Colorado has the highest density of 60+% is it all expats of the Midwest who don't want to move too far away?

Actually because it's in percentages it could be small towns run by one large industry that requires degrees.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I assume a lot of defense stuff air force academy, NORAD, space force...

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Doesn’t hurt that a lot of people who have visited end up coming back to stay. Colorado is pretty great place to live.

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[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Whycome the south doesn't has orange boxes? Is we stupid?

[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago

No I ain’t

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago (2 children)

NC and TN have some. But we often is.

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

One can see the impact of the Yellowstone national park quite clearly.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Same with Los Alamos Labs in NM. That orange spot has more PhDs per Capita than anywhere else in the states.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago

Cambridge, Massachusetts might be its rival

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

I was wondering what that was.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I want to see the map with 20-30 and 30-40 too!

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago

I want to see a map with % of high school equivalency.

I am part of the original map though, I only have an associates

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago (1 children)

If you are wondering what that red spot in Wyoming ans adjacent green in Idaho is, they are the Teton counties (one on each state).

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Nah, Teton County is easy to understand although I do question how they have a higher percentage than Albany County. What I'm really wondering about though is that orange county in South Western Colorado. WTF is that about?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

San Miguel County. There isn't too much there, but it does have Telluride, a very posh ski town. If I had to guess, I would say the less-educated staff (hotel housekeeping, restaurant servers, lift operators, etc) are only there seasonally but business owners/managers and maybe some remote workers are there permanently, skewing things a bit?

I would LOVE to see a better answer than mine!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

I'm pretty sure this is the answer. That county is super sparsely populated, outside of Telluride. Telluride is a mini Aspen, so is populated by wealthy (and thus usually educated) people.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

I live near Indianapolis.

You wouldn't now it.

Edit: Ironically, I made a spelling typo. Sigh.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

It appears that the red county is Hamilton County, not Marion County.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago

Dang CO, you smart sexy bastard.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago

Mississippi making Arkansas and Louisiana look bad.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

I see you, Los Alamos.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Damn, Arizona and Utah. What happened to you?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

And Arkansas and Louisiana. They're all in the South, no surprise there. :/

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I looked to the south first and somehow missed those two. And absolutely no surprise about these two.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Let me guess the red in Indiana contains Purdue and Bloomington

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago

Neither I believe it's Hamilton County, the (comparatively) rich suburb of Indianapolis.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Those are the green counties actually.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

Without having done my research, this feels like a lack of data more than anything.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

Ah. That's why.

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