U.S.

America's 'Smartest' City Is...

The website Wallet Hub named Ann Arbor, Michigan America's most educated city.

America's 'Smartest' City Is...
Gsgeorge

America’s brainiest city? According to the personal finance resource site Wallet Hub — it’s Ann Arbor, Michigan.

HLN: “It's home to the smartest people in the country…” 

And home, of course, to the University of Michigan.

Now — “smartest” might not be the most accurate term to describe the survey findings. Unless you consider being “most college-educated” the equivalent of “smartest.”

WalletHub used Census Bureau and Labor Statistics data to analyze things like:

- How many adults had a high school diploma, college education, graduate or professional degrees

- Number of doctors per capita

- Number of workers in engineering, science and computer fields

But it seems “America’s Smartest” is a title more than one city can claim — depending on who’s making the list.

Just last year in fact — a different site gave Stanford, California the same label.

The methodology of that survey was a lot different though. The cognitive training site Lumosity actually put residents to the test and ran them through memory and attention exercises.

But there is a common thread among both surveys’ findings — namely, that college towns tended to rank pretty highly. Which is probably not that surprising.

Wallet Hub’s top four were:

- Ann Arbor, MI (University of Michigan)

- Raleigh, NC (North Carolina State University)

- Durham, NC (Duke University)

- Provo, UT (Brigham Young University)

And the least educated? According to the list:

- Rockford, Illinois

- Salinas, California

- Beaumont, Texas

This video includes images from Gsgeorge, AndrewHorne / CC BY 3.0 and Jrissman / CC BY 3.0.