Percentage of Population 25 Years and Older with a Bachelor's Degree
A college degree is a widely used benchmark of human capital and is a prerequisite for many highly paid jobs. Today, a college degree is the new high school degree. In 2006, the U.S. Bureau of the Census estimated that roughly 27 percent of persons aged 25 and older in the United States had completed at least a four-year college degree. College attainment varied widely among states. More than 35 percent of the population in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Colorado and New York had completed a bachelor’s degree. Arkansas, Mississippi and West Virginia had the lowest rates of educational attainment, with less than one in five adults holding a four-year degree.
This statistic measures the fraction of the adult population (those 25 years old and older) who have completed at least a four-year college degree. A four-year degree is a widely used benchmark of human capital and is a prerequisite for many highly paid jobs. Please note that while the data for 1960 through 2000 were taken from the decennial census, the data for 2006 were taken from the American Community Survey which has a much higher sampling error, making those estimates less precise. These data were taken from the U. S. Bureau of the Census's Decennial Census, File SF-3, (2000 and earlier years) and the American Community Survey (2006). Joseph Cortright, vice president/economist of Impresa Consulting, provided consulting support on developing and analyzing these data.
