COLUMBIA TOPS LAWRENCE: In ranking of "smartest college towns"

COLUMBIA, 12/10/09 (Beat Byte) -- As the nation's 12th smartest college town, Columbia, Missouri tops Lawrence, Kansas by 8 points in a new ranking of the twenty five smartest college towns in America.  Compiled by the popular New York City-based news site The Daily Beast, the ranking looked at college towns with a minimum population of 25,000.  Editors ranked the cities based on:

 

1. Bachelor's degrees per capita for the over-25 population.

2. Graduate degrees per capita for the over-25 population.

3. Median SAT score for the town's student population.

4. Voter turnout in the 2008 election.  Political engagement, whether left or right, has repeatedly correlated with higher intelligence.

 

The top 20 percent of cities got As, the next 40 percent got Bs, the following 20 percent got Cs, and then the bottom fifth got Ds, with the exception of the very last town, which got an F.

 

 

The towns are, from smartest to dumbest:

 

1. Chapel Hill, North Carolina (Grade: A)
2. Ann Arbor, Michigan (Grade: A)
3. Boulder, Colorado (Grade: A)
4. Cambridge, Massachusetts (Grade: A)
5. Berkeley, California (Grade: A)
6. Madison, Wisconsin (Grade: B)
7. East Lansing, Michigan (Grade: B)
8. State College, Pennsylvania (Grade: B)
9. Ames, Iowa (Grade: B)
10. Amherst, Massachusetts (Grade: B)
11. Ithaca, New York (Grade: B)
12. Columbia, Missouri (Grade: B)
13. Charlottesville, Virginia (Grade: B)
14. Davis, California (Grade: B)
15. Corvallis, Oregon (Grade: B)
16. College Station, Texas (Grade: C)
17. Gainesville, Florida (Grade: C)
18. Auburn, Alabama (Grade: C)
19. College Park, Maryland (Grade: C)
20. Lawrence, Kansas (Grade: C)
21. Champaign-Urbana, Illinois (Grade: D)
22. Norman, Oklahoma (Grade: D)
23. South Bend, Indiana (Grade: D)
24. Kent, Ohio (Grade: D)
25. Athens, Georgia (Grade: F)

 

 

RELATED:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-12-07/smartest-and-dumbest-college-towns.