Brain power
New ranking of America's smartest cities puts Houston near back of the class
![Stack of books](https://houston.culturemap.com/media-library/stack-of-books.jpg?id=31509871&width=2000&height=1500&quality=65&coordinates=3%2C0%2C3%2C0)
Houston sits toward the back of the class when it comes to the smartest metro areas in the U.S., according to a new study.
In the study, published by personal finance website WalletHub, the Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land area ranks 90th among the most-educated metros. Houston trails Austin-Round Rock (No. 9) and Dallas-Fort Worth (No. 71) but outperforms San Antonio-New Braunfels (No. 106) on the 150-metro list. At the very bottom of the list are McAllen (No. 148) and Brownsville (No. 149).
Houston's ranking remains unchanged from WalletHub’s 2018 study.
To determine where the most-educated Americans live, WalletHub compared the 150 largest metros across 11 metrics. That data includes the share of adults 25 and older with at least a bachelor’s degree, the quality of public schools, and the gender gap in education.
Here’s how Houston fared across some of the data categories (lower ranking is better):
- No. 30 — Black-versus-white education gap
- No. 36 — Quality of public schools
- No. 59 — Share of adults with at least a bachelor’s degree
- No. 65 — Women-versus-men education gap
- No. 72 — Share of adults with a graduate or professional degree
- No. 74 — Average quality of universities
- No. 90 — Share of adults with an associate’s degree or college experience
- No. 112 — Students enrolled in top 951 universities per capita
- No. 135 — Share of residents with a high school diploma
The most educated metro in this year's ranking is Ann Arbor, Michigan. Visalia-Porterville, California, though, sits at the bottom of the list as the nation's least educated metro.