California home to some of America's least-educated cities, study says

California's school systems rank among lower half in US: study

California schools rank among the lower half of the nation according to a new WalletHub study.

LOS ANGELES - Several cities in California have low rankings for education, and one city in particular ranked the least-educated city in the entire U.S., according to a new WalletHub study.

What we know:

The personal finance website ranked the most and least educated cities in the U.S. and determined that California and Texas ranked as the nation’s least educated cities. 

Multiple cities in both states were ranked in the top 20 of least educated cities, including Visalia, California, Bakersfield, California, Brownsville-Harlingen, Texas, and McAllen-Edinburg-Mission, Texas.  

Here's how California ranked among various metrics used in the study:

Quality & Safety of Schools in California (1=Best; 25=Avg.):

• Overall Rank: 30th
• 40th – Math Test Scores
• 37th – Reading Test Scores
• 50th – Pupil-Teacher Ratio
• 26th – Median SAT Score
• 1st – Median ACT Score
• 19th – % of Licensed/Certified Public K–12 Teachers
• 22nd – Dropout Rate
• 39th – Bullying Incidence Rate
• 2nd – % of Threatened/Injured High School Students
• 1st – Existence of Digital Learning Plan

Here's the full list of this year's least-educated cities:

Top 20 least-educated cities in the U.S. for 2025

1. Visalia, California
2. Brownsville-Harlingen, Texas
3. McAllen-Edinburg-Mission, Texas
4. Bakersfield, California
5. Modesto, California
6. Fresno, California
7. Stockton, California
8. Salinas, California
9. Hickory-Lenoir-Morganton, North Carolina
10. Beaumont-Port Arthur, Texas
11. Corpus Christi, Texas
12. Ocala, Florida
13. Riverside-San Bernadino-Ontario, California
14. Lakeland-Winterhaven, Florida
15. Reading, Pennsylvania
16. Huntington-Ashland, West Virginia-Kentucky-Ohio
17. Lafayette, Louisiana
18. Youngstown-Warren-Boardman, Ohio-Pennsylvania
19. El Paso, Texas
20. Rockford, Illinois

How was the data gathered for the study?

Why you should care:

WalletHub released a new study about the least and most educated cities across the country and their rankings were created by comparing the 150 largest metropolitan statistical areas across 11 key categories, including "Educational Attainment" and "Quality of Education & Attainment Gap." Researchers assessed those categories and graded them on a 100-point scale with 100 representing a perfect score.

The team also used data that centered on the share of Americans 25 years old and older with a bachelor’s degree or higher to the quality of the public-school system to the gender education gap. Rankings were also created using data from the U.S. Census Bureau, GreatSchools.org, GreatSchools.org-Education Equality Index, Yelp and WalletHub research.