California, Texas are home to America's least-educated cities: See the 2025 list
FILE-Multiple groups of college students sit together at tables in the Milton S Eisenhower Library at Johns Hopkins University. (Photo by JHU Sheridan Libraries/Gado/Getty Images).
A college degree has many benefits, like the chance at a higher salary and career flexibility, but not all U.S. cities may offer the same quality of education compared to others, based on analysis in a new WalletHub study.
The personal finance website ranked the most and least educated cities in the U.S. and determined that California and Texas ranked as the nation’s least educated cities.
RELATED: Unemployment among college grads surpasses overall joblessness rate in US
Multiple cities in both states were ranked in the top 20 of least educated cities, including Visalia, California, Bakersfield, California, Brownsville-Harlingen, Texas, and McAllen-Edinburg-Mission, Texas. Here's the list of this year's least-educated cities.
Top 20 least educated cities in the U.S. for 2025
- Visalia, California
- Brownsville-Harlingen, Texas
- McAllen-Edinburg-Mission, Texas
- Bakersfield, California
- Modesto, California
- Fresno, California
- Stockton, California
- Salinas, California
- Hickory-Lenoir-Morganton, North Carolina
- Beaumont-Port Arthur, Texas
- Corpus Christi, Texas
- Ocala, Florida
- Riverside-San Bernadino-Ontario, California
- Lakeland-Winterhaven, Florida
- Reading, Pennsylvania
- Huntington-Ashland, West Virginia-Kentucky-Ohio
- Lafayette, Louisiana
- Youngstown-Warren-Boardman, Ohio-Pennsylvania
- El Paso, Texas
- Rockford, Illinois
How was the data gathered for the study?
Why you should care:
WalletHub released a new study about the least and most educated cities across the country and their rankings were created by comparing the 150 largest metropolitan statistical areas across 11 key categories, including "Educational Attainment" and "Quality of Education & Attainment Gap." Researchers assessed those categories and graded them on a 100-point scale with 100 representing a perfect score.
The team also used data that centered on the share of Americans 25 years old and older with a bachelor’s degree or higher to the quality of the public-school system to the gender education gap. Rankings were also created using data from the U.S. Census Bureau, GreatSchools.org, GreatSchools.org-Education Equality Index, Yelp and WalletHub research.
The Source: Information for this story was provided by WalletHub, which conducted a study of the least and most educated cities in 2025 using key categories, including "Educational Attainment" and "Quality of Education & Attainment Gap." Researchers assessed those benchmarks and graded them on a 100-point scale with a perfect score representing the highest educational attainment and quality of education. This story was reported from Washington, D.C.