Maine’s Largest City is One of the Most Educated in the Nation

Maine's largest city passed the test with flying colors in latest education report.

Wallethub.com, a popular personal finance website, has published its annual report on the most educated American cities. Not only can Portland be found near the top, but it's also one of the most educated cities in New England.

Portland ranks as the 12th most educated city in America. That's out of a list of 150 cities that were used in Wallethub.com's survey. I would have to say that's a very proud ranking for the small city. It wiped the floor with the majority of the country.

Maine scored a 72.29 out of a possible 100 points. The scoring system is based on a two major categories, Educational Attainment and Quality of Education & Attainment Gap. These categories are broken down in 11 sub-categories to make it as detailed as possible. You can read more about the methodology here.

Portland scored a Top-50 ranking in quality of education and attainment gap, finishing with a respectable 46th place. This category included looking at the quality of public education, plus gaps in gender and race. The top third placement should be viewed as a positive.

However, Portland truly shined in educational attainment, finishing with a ranking of 13th overall. This category included looking at the population and its level of education. I think it's easy to say that the region is doing quite well for itself.

These are great statistics for Portland and its surrounding regions. It's the kind of numbers you like to see for an area to help with innovation and growth, two things that we have seen recently increase in the region.

Portland finished as the second most educated region in New England, only behind Boston. The Commonwealth's largest region ended up with a ranking of 7th.

According to Wallethub, the most educated American city is Ann Arbor, Michigan, finishing just ahead of San Jose, California.

The least educated went to the town of Visalia, California. Hey, congrats to Mississippi and West Virginia. Typically, one of those two states represents the bottom of these reports. Not this time, though.

You can see the entire map here.