Bossier City is strongly linked with quality education. From overall A grades for its public schools and a community college dedicated to meeting workforce needs to fostering STEM education for its burgeoning tech industry, it’s no surprise that intelligence is a priority for the city.
But is it one of the smartest cities in Louisiana? A new study says, “Yes”.
Zippia, a site dedicated to linking college graduates and the public with career opportunities, set out to find cities in the state with with an intelligent population.
Bossier City ended up No. 3 overall.
Its population of 66,093 featured 25.55% of adults with a BA or higher. Plus, the high school dropout rate was only 1%.
For reference, Zippia said only about 30% of Americans over 25 have graduated from college. And the National Center for Education Statistics said the average high school dropout rate in the U.S. in 2015 was 5.9%.
In order to find out their rankings, Zippia turned to demographic data from the U.S. Census. They found the percentage of adults (over 25) with at least a college degree – higher is smarter – and the percentage of high school dropouts (aged 15-17) – lower is smarter. Any place with over 10,000 people and data available for that criteria left them with 37 places in Louisiana.
All the cities for each criteria were ranked from 1 to 37 with No. 1 being the “smartest” in any category. The average rank across the criteria, with the place posting the highest overall score was given the diploma for “Smartest City In Louisiana”.
The top 10 brightest cities in the Pelican State are:
- Mandeville
- Ruston
- Bossier City
- Zachary
- Sulphur
- Natchitoches
- Central
- Lake Charles
- Baton Rouge
- Lafayette
Read the whole report for yourself HERE.