CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — A study that intended to show which cities highly-educated people are flocking to made it clear that it is not Corpus Christi. In fact, it ranked Corpus Christi as the third least educated city in all of Texas, and seventh least educated in the United States.
WalletHub compared the 150 largest metropolitan statistical areas, or MSAs, across 11 key metrics, which included the share of adults with high school and college degrees, quality of the public school system and racial and gender education gaps. Corpus Christi got a score of 28.35 out of 100 and ranked as the third least educated city in Texas.
Brownsville-Harlingen and Beaumont-Port Arthur were the two least educated cities in Texas, the study showed.
Better education typically leads to higher earnings. The more that graduates earn, the more tax dollars they contribute over time, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
"In turn, educated people want to live somewhere where they will get a good return on their educational investment," Adam McCann, financial writer for WalletHub said.
Experts said a highly-educated population is key for communities to continue to grow and stay strong in economic downturns.
"Communities with the highest proportion of adults with a college education also have the highest GDPs," Molly Martin, Associate Professor of Sociology and Demography at Pennsylvania State University, said. "The true benefit of a college degree is the acquisition of numeracy and language skills, critical thinking, and broad knowledge that helps college graduates adapt to evolving careers, markets, and societal pressures. Thus, communities with a more highly educated population are likely better able to weather economic downturns."
As for developing a more educated and skilled workforce, one expert said politics needs to stay out of the educational system.
"A case in point are the model legislative bills that are and have circulated among state legislative bodies and that prescribe not just what to teach but also what cannot be taught," Margaret-Mary Sulentic Dowell, Ph.D., Associate Director for Educational Research and Policy, Lutrill and Pearl Payne School of Education at Louisiana State University said.
"These bills mandate a prescriptive curriculum that over relies on phonics and ignores what other literacy factors and elements produce good readers and writers. Couple that with banned books, and you have a sure-fire way to continue to suppress segments of the population and deny them access to post-secondary education."
