Arlington has fallen from No. 1 to No. 2 in a ranking of the most educated “cities” in the country.
The new ranking from Forbes Advisor spotlights Arlington’s status as having the nation’s highest percentage of residents aged 25 and older with bachelor’s degrees and graduate degrees — 78% and 43%, respectively. That’s a hair above last year’s percentages of 76% and 42%.
The county also has a high school dropout rate of just 4%.
However, a new place claimed Arlington’s spot as top dog in education this year: Atlanta.
Though ranking less favorably than Arlington in bachelor’s degrees, graduate degrees, dropout rates and equity gaps, the Georgia city clinched the top spot due to the use of weighted metrics.
“Atlanta scored higher due to stronger performance in the higher-weighted categories, resulting in a final score of 100.00, while Arlington CDP received a 97.14,” a Forbes Advisor spokesperson told ARLnow.
Atlanta has a higher percentage of people aged 25 and up who have some college education but no degree: 14% compared to 8% in Arlington, according to the ranking.
Not appearing in this year’s list was D.C. Though the District ranked third last year, this time around, “D.C. did not make the top 100 due to updated metrics,” the spokesperson said.
Another recent ranking, this one from WalletHub, ranked the D.C. area as a whole as the third most-educated metropolitan area in the United States, behind Ann Arbor, Mich. and the Silicon Valley area including San Jose, Calif.
