Half of DC area adults have college diplomas
by
Annie Enchakattu
| Jul 16, 2010
Seattle has Microsoft. Boston has Harvard. San Jose is higher-tech, New York more cosmopolitan.
But the Washington region has something those cities do not: the best-educated population in the nation. Almost half of adult Washington area residents have college diplomas, and better than one-fifth have graduate or professional degrees. By either measure, the region has the most educated population of any large metropolitan center.
A study recently released by the Brookings Institution affirms the region's educational primacy, based on 2008 Census data for the 100 largest metropolitan areas. To demographers, this was no revelation. The area has ranked as the country's best-educated metropolis for at least four decades. The suburbs of Bethesda and Arlington County occasionally surface on lists of smartest cities. See the story in The Washington Post online or read the study by the Brookings Institution.