> The problem's that the smart, ambitious kids mostly choose to move elsewhere after HS or college. Even for the ones that want to stay, the local economy and j

> The problem's that the smart, ambitious kids mostly choose to move elsewhere after HS or college. Even for the ones that want to stay, the local economy and job market isn't that great. Agreed. In fact, I think the entire thing driving the data here is population flow. I grew up in #148 (Porterville) and moved to #6 (Boston) in the list for school. And most of the people I know in Boston didn't themselves grow up there. A city could have the best education system in the world, but if it didn't have a thriving economy to keep its graduates it would still show up low on this list. On the other hand, a city with a crap education system can still hire in the best graduates of other schools if it has the jobs to draw them. I'm not even sure what data I'd be curious to see here. I was going to say it would be interesting to look at most educated cities considering only people born and raised there. But someone living in the same place all their life is so rare anymore, I'm not sure how meaningful that would be. Maybe just looking at people who graduated college there would be cool; after you graduate you're more likely to just stick around if you can. If that's the case, I guess the takeaway would be to try to establish strong universities in every city?