Highest Level of Educational Attainment of U.S. Population, 2005

All,

Here is article concerning the educational attainment of population for 2005.What is shocking is not just the percentage of individuals with college degrees rather the number who are high school graduates.


http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0908670.html

 

I think those statistics are misleading. At first look, it looks like only 32.2% of the population has a high school diploma. If you think about, all of the people with some college and higher have a high school diploma as well. Add in the percentages for people with some college, an associates, a bachelors, masters or doctorate and that high school number goes up way higher.

 

Good point. Still, I really thought the percentage of people with a masters degree would be higher than 7 or 8 percent.

Pug

 

f we add all the percentages we get

8.5
32.2
16.8
8.6
18.1
6.8
1.2
1.5

Total 93.7 %

Does it mean that the remaining 6.3% does not even have a partial High school education?

 

The Census Bureau's most recent report on this topic is here. As of 2007, the educational attainment of Americans aged 25 or older (Table 1) was estimated as follows:

84.5 % High school graduate (or higher)
54.5 % Some college (or higher)
27.5 % Bachelor's degree (or higher)
10.1 % Advanced degree

The rates vary significantly by state (Table 2). In some northeastern states, for example, more than 30% of the population has a bachelor's degree or higher (e.g. 37.9 % in Massachusetts). In some southern states, the comparable figure is less than 20 % (e.g. 18.9 % in Mississippi).

 

Maybe. According to the chart, these percentages are based on people 25 years and older in 2005 which totals 189 million people.

If look at people with a masters degree or higher, that would be 9.5% or roughly 18 million people. That's not too surprising of a number to me.

 

Here are studies based on US census data:

http://www.luminafoundation.org/research/state_data/wyoming.html

Just plug in whatever state you would like to see....

Pretty interesting how a few states can skew the overall results on both ends of the spectrum.