Illinois Lags Midwest In Study Of Most Educated Cities In America

By Andrew Hensel | The Center Square

ILLINOIS — A new report ranks 150 cities across the country by certain metrics to determine which are the most educated and what cities are considered the least educated. Illinois finishes with five cities on the list, but lags the Midwest.

The report by WalletHub ranked the states by two main metrics, educational attainment and quality, according to John Kiernan of WalletHub.

"We looked at the percentage of people with high school degrees, college degrees, and we also looked at things like the quality of public schools and universities, as well as achievement gaps between gender, race, and income level," Kiernan said.

Illinois had five cities on the list, with the Chicago-Naperville-Elgin area finishing the highest on the list of Illinois cities at number 31.

Peoria (97), Davenport-Moline-Rock Island, IA-IL (108), and Rockford (131) also all made the list. However, Kiernan said that while Illinois has several cities listed, they are still struggling to keep up with neighboring states.

"We had Ann Arbor, Michigan finish top overall in our study, and we also had Madison, Wisconsin that came in 4th," Kiernan said. "So there is still some work to catch those states for Illinois."

St. Paul, Minnesota and Lansing, Michigan also ranked higher than Illinois' top ranking.

The focus of the work of The Center Square Illinois is state- and local-level government and economic reporting that approaches stories with a taxpayer sensibility. For more stories from The Center Square, visit TheCenterSquare.com.