Massachusetts Is The #1 State In The Country In This Category

Once again, high fives all around, residents of Massachusetts! WalletHub has rolled out the red carpet for the Commonwealth because the results from one of their latest studies rank Massachusetts right on top!

This time around, the WalletHub crew took a look at how individual states in the U.S. fare in terms of education or lack thereof. And guess what, smartypants? Massachusetts ranks #1 as the Most Educated State in the country. Sweet!

To come up with their findings, the WalletHub team of experts looked at several key metrics(as they always do!) such as the percentage of diploma and/or degree holders in each state, the quality of schools and universities, achievement gaps between genders and races, etc.

Massachusetts performed well in several of the indicators, ranking #1 in four of them: Average University Quality, Percentage of Bachelor Degree Holders, Percentage of Graduate- or Professional-Degree Holders, and Gender Gap in Educational Attainment. That was enough to put Massachusetts #1 overall.

So, according to WalletHub's study, here are the top 10 for 2023's Most Educated States in America:

Massachusetts
Maryland
Connecticut
Vermont
Colorado
New Jersey
Virginia
New Hampshire
Minnesota
Utah

You'll notice that New England was well-represented in the top 10 with four states. And Maine and Rhode Island did pretty well landing in the top 20(Rhode Island at #12, Maine at #18).

Just because you've read this far and you really wanted to know, here are the top 5 for 2023's Least Educated States in America:

West Virginia
Mississippi
Louisiana
Arkansas
Alabama

Nice job, WalletHub! Thanks for some Massachusetts L-O-V-E! Do yourself a favor when you have a free moment and take a look at the study on WalletHub's website here. You won't regret it.

LOOK: The 25 least expensive states to live in

Here are the top 25 states with the lowest cost of living in 2022, using data Stacker culled from the Council for Community and Economic Research.

Gallery Credit: Aubrey Jane McClaine

LOOK: Baby boomer baby names that have gone out of style

Using info from the Social Security Administration's baby name database, Stacker compiled a list of baby boomer baby names that have declined in popularity.

Gallery Credit: Elizabeth Jackson

LOOK: Here are the 50 best beach towns in America

Every beach town has its share of pluses and minuses, which got us thinking about what makes a beach town the best one to live in. To find out, Stacker consulted data from WalletHub, released June 17, 2020, that compares U.S. beach towns. Ratings are based on six categories: affordability, weather, safety, economy, education and health, and quality of life. The cities ranged in population from 10,000 to 150,000, but they had to have at least one local beach listed on TripAdvisor. Read the full methodology here. From those rankings, we selected the top 50. Readers who live in California and Florida will be unsurprised to learn that many of towns featured here are in one of those two states.

Keep reading to see if your favorite beach town made the cut.

Gallery Credit: Keri Wiginton

READ ON: See the States Where People Live the Longest

Stacker used data from the 2020 County Health Rankings to rank every state's average life expectancy from lowest to highest. The 2020 County Health Rankings values were calculated using mortality counts from the 2016-2018 National Center for Health Statistics. The U.S. Census 2019 American Community Survey and America's Health Rankings Senior Report 2019 data were also used to provide demographics on the senior population of each state and the state's rank on senior health care, respectively.

Read on to learn the average life expectancy in each state.

Gallery Credit: Hannah Lang

Source: Massachusetts Is The #1 State In The Country In This Category