Brain power
New ranking of America's smartest cities puts Dallas-Fort Worth in the middle of the class
Dallas-Fort Worth sits in the middle of the class when it comes to the smartest metro areas in the U.S., according to a new study.
In the study, published by personal finance website WalletHub, the Dallas-Fort Worth area ranks 71st among the most-educated metros. While it sits in the middle of nationwide list, DFW is one of the higher-ranked Texas metros, trailing Austin-Round Rock (No. 9) and outperforming Houston (No. 90) and San Antonio-New Braunfels (No. 106) on the 150-metro list. At the very bottom of the list are McAllen (No. 148) and Brownsville (No. 149).
DFW's ranking remains unchanged from WalletHub’s 2018 study.
To determine where the most-educated Americans live, WalletHub compared the 150 largest metros across 11 metrics. That data includes the share of adults 25 and older with at least a bachelor’s degree, the quality of public schools, and the gender gap in education.
Here’s how DFW fared across some of the data categories (lower ranking is better):
- No. 44 — Black-versus-white education gap
- No. 47 — Share of adults with at least a bachelor’s degree
- No. 58 — Quality of public schools
- No. 67 — Share of adults with an associate’s degree or college experience
- No. 67 — Average quality of universities
- No. 68 — Share of adults with a graduate or professional degree
- No. 77 — Students enrolled in top 951 universities per capita
- No. 83 — Women-versus-men education gap
- No. 131 — Share of residents with a high school diploma
The most educated metro in this year's ranking is Ann Arbor, Michigan. Visalia-Porterville, California, though, sits at the bottom of the list as the nation's least educated metro.