Nearly 20 million people are studying at America’s colleges today. Many attend to extend their educations. Most attend because the incomes of college-educated people are much higher than people who have only completed high school. Colleges range from small community operations to state universities that can have tens of thousands of students.
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As people leave college, they tend to be concentrated in some parts of the country. By contrast, some areas have very few college-educated people at all.

Using census data, 24/7 Wall St. determined the percentage of adults 25 years and over in Zip codes across the country who have at least a bachelor’s degree. Not surprisingly, it found that Washington, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco and New York all had numerous Zip codes ranking near the top by this measure.

The Zip code where the most adults have a college degree is Boston’s 02163, which has a population of 1,343. Here are the details:

• Adults over 25 with at least a bachelor’s degree: 94.6%
• Adults over 25 with a graduate or professional degree: 33.7% (584th highest of 20,747)
• Median household income: $57,989 (11,155th highest)
• Estimated unemployment rate (16 and older): 5.1% (2,435th highest)

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Methodology: To determine America’s most educated Zip code, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed five-year estimates of the percentage of adults 25 years and over with at least a bachelor’s degree from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2020 American Community Survey (ACS).

We used ZIP Code Tabulation Areas (a Census Bureau geography type that defines areal representations of U.S. Postal Service Zip codes) and refer to these areas as Zip codes.

Zip codes were excluded if bachelor’s degree or higher attainment rates were not available in the 2020 ACS, if the Zip code’s 25 and older population was less than 1,000 or if the sampling error associated with a Zip code’s data was 15% or greater.

Additional information on the percentage of adults 25 years and over who have a graduate or professional degree; median household income; estimated unemployment rates for the 16 and older population in the civilian labor force; and population figures are also five-year estimates from the 2020 ACS.

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