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New report card ranks Austin among 10 most educated cities in the U.S.

Austin comes in at No. 10 for well-balanced quality and accessibility of education; significantly better than the rest of the state.

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As much as Austin is a music town, a foodie town, a wacky arts town — it can be those things because it’s a college town. (Even though Janis Joplin never finished college, her singing career really broke out when she started hanging out with fellow University of Texas students). This July, personal finance website WalletHub found that the Austin metro area ranked No. 10 in its list of the most and least educated cities in the United States.

WalletHub started with the country’s 150 most populated metropolitan areas, and compared them over 11 metrics addressing population shares by highest level of education (the great majority of the weight of the study), quality of schools, summer learning opportunities, and education equality.

The top 10 most educated U.S. cities, according to WalletHub, are:

1. Ann Arbor, Michigan
2. San Jose, California
3. Washington, D.C.
4. Madison, Wisconsin
5. San Francisco, California
6. Boston, Massachusetts
7. Durham, North Carolina
8. Raleigh, North Carolina
9. Seattle, Washington
10. Austin, Texas

(CultureMap has simplified these cities from metropolitan areas for readability.)

Of these 10 cities, half are capitals, including the nation’s capital at No. 4. This could be as much a fact of population-based methodology as an indication that capitals tend to be very well educated (i.e. states like Maine are represented only once, by its capital city, which happened to do quite well at No. 16). However, the least educated capital was Salem, Oregon (No. 116), demonstrating a much lower prevalence in the lower rankings.

Austin did well, but did not stand out dramatically, in the composite categories of “educational attainment” and “quality of education and attainment gap,” at Nos. 11 and 13, respectively. The University of Texas at Austin, the highest nationally ranked school in Texas at No. 38, also ranked second-highest statewide for investment efficiency in 2022. (Plus, there are 19 other colleges within 60 miles, according to the Austin Chamber of Commerce.)

The rest of Texas lags significantly behind in the WalletHub rankings, with Dallas cracking the top half at No. 73. Houston (No. 88) and San Antonio (No. 105) hung around the middle, with other Texas spots (Killeen, El Paso, Corpus Christi, Beaumont) falling even lower. McAllen and Brownsville came third and second to last overall.

One limiting factor in this survey of education is its focus on formal, in-school education. Although most of Texas could stand to improve its numbers in these realms, Austinites are afforded one more luxury as Texans: an opportunity to look deeper at the community values around them that elude or resist standardization. Maybe wait until school’s out, though.

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share the road

Texas races to the bottom in new list of best states for cyclists

Photo by Justin Wallace on Unsplash

If you've ridden your bicycle in Austin, you already know how true this is.

In what will come as no surprise to cyclists around Austin, the state of Texas is not a good place for bicycle riding. According to a new report of the "Most Cycling-Friendly States in the U.S.," Texas comes in at No. 47 — meaning that only three other states are worse.

The report, from Philadelphia personal injury law firm KaplunMarx, examines all 50 states based on six metrics: Air quality index, the number of cyclist deaths per one million residents, bike routes per square mile, local government actions supporting cycling, federal funding for cycling projects, and bicycle laws.

Texas musters a mere 31 points out of 100 for its "cycling friendly score."

The most cycling-friendly state in the U.S.: Minnesota, which earned 84 points to claim the title.

According to the report's findings, there have been 15 local government actions per capita in Texas that integrate pedestrians and cyclists in transportation projects. Texas' has a 41 air quality index value, and there are approximately 1.2 bike routes per 1,000 square miles in the state.

On cyclist deaths, Texas does a little better, with three cyclist deaths per one million residents in Texas — about nine percent lower than the national average.

According to KaplunMarx founding partner Ted Kaplun, there is an average of 857 cyclist fatalities in the U.S. every year. He adds that every measure or community effort to improve cyclist-friendliness is beneficial for all Americans.

"It's crucial for all states to continually assess and enhance their cycling provisions, learning from both high-ranking peers and their own experiences," he says.

Top-ranking Minnesota has only one cyclist death per one million state residents. It also has about 27.2 bike routes per 1,000 square miles.

After Minnesota, the remaining top five best states for cyclists are Massachusetts (No. 2), Rhode Island (No. 3), Washington (No. 4), and Iowa (No. 5).

At the bottom of the list are Nevada (No. 48), Arizona (No. 49), and Utah (No. 50) — all of which performed far worse than Texas to be declared the three least cycling-friendly states.

The entire country still has areas for improvement when it comes to creating a safer environment for cyclists, regardless of where each state landed on the list, according to Kaplun.

"With over 53 million Americans riding bicycles regularly, the importance of cycling-friendly infrastructure and safety measures cannot be overstated," said Kaplun in the report. "This isn't just about rankings – it's about enhancing the quality of life, promoting sustainable transportation, and most crucially, saving lives."

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