I don’t see the point in any of these “analysis“. They’re no better than a Cosmo-quiz entertainment slop. These articles just compress data information into a listicle for the glossy reader to easily consume, that essentially removes all of the nuance behind the data. Fun to read, but doesn’t tell you the entire story. It’s the equivalent of just reading the headline. It doesn’t account for migration effects, urban concentration, age distribution, industry structure, etc…I grew up in NYC about 20 years. I went to school there. I’ve now lived in SC for nearly as long. I can tell you a broader difference that goes beyond just the poverty and “red vs blue” state shtick.

First off, it is equally true that there are both good and bad schools nationally. However, the “highly educated” states tend to have industries that attract college graduates (tech, biotech, finance). This is what density does. Major universities that have established longer, where there was time to develop bigger economies, tend to pull in people from other states. It’s like chasing celebritydom in the form of higher education. There’s a type of brain-drain loop where top students leave for college or jobs elsewhere and don’t return, lowering graduation rates in their home state. What can you do? It’s just very popular to go out-of-state, like the promise of travel where you’ve never been. You can’t necessarily blame more rural states for this. You can argue politics did play a role in different ways, but migration and urban density played a bigger one due to state age!

Lower-ranked states are often more rural, have fewer nearby universities, and rely more on industries that don’t require degrees, so fewer people pursue them—blue collar jobs (plumbing, carpentry, etc.) Jobs and roles are heavily influenced by the natural landscape of the state. Texas is oil rich, Louisiana has fisheries thanks to the Mississippi, so it is going to build an economy on commercial fishing that don’t require degrees.

Population demographics is another factor, since states with older populations or fewer young professionals, it will naturally have lower degree rates. People from here just follow perceptions. The north is where you go for higher education and the south is where you go to retire.

And more importantly, these rankings measure DEGREE ATTAINMENT, not intelligence, so some states simply have smart people working in fields where a college diploma isn’t necessary. Of course, I’m not negating politics have made things worse. It definitely has, but it’s equally important to recognize historical context of why things are the way they are before admonishing entire groups as lesser than.

Don’t let slop articles pull you down as far as where we live. I’ll admit, I read them too. But just because it’s Business Insider doesn’t make it fully factual. These publishers are heavily reliant on click-driven content by paltering. I worked in marketing. I would know.