Eastern Iowa Counties Called Out for Being Least Educated in the State

It's never pleasant to be called one of the least educated counties. Nor is it fun to be compared to other counties in terms of who's smarter when you're not top of the list. Especially if border counties are ranked higher. That's the case with a new study that examines Iowa's least-educated counties. While most of the counties are actually in the western portion of the state, there are a couple in eastern Iowa.

Get our free mobile app

It may not surprise you that major university counties such as Johnson, Black Hawk, and Story are nowhere to be found on this list. That would have certainly raised some eyebrows, to say the least.

Iowa's least educated counties

The list of our least educated counties comes from Stacker. It looks at what percentage of the county's population have a bachelor's degree, or higher... all the way down to the percentage with less than a high school diploma. The discovery showed only two eastern Iowa counties were in the bottom 10, and they actually came in ninth and tenth, if that makes it any better.

TAMA COUNTY

According to the stats from Stacker, 15.8% of the population in Tama aged 25 years and over have a bachelor's degree or higher.

Other educational stats for Tama include:

• Less than high school diploma: 8.7%
• High school graduate: 40%
• Some college or Associate's degree: 35.5%
• Bachelor's degree: 11.7%
• Graduate or professional degree: 4.1%

HOWARD COUNTY

According to the stats from Stacker, 15.8% of the population in Howard 25 years and over have a bachelor's degree or higher, same as Tama county.

• Less than high school diploma: 9.1%
• High school graduate: 40%
• Some college or Associate's degree: 35.1%
• Bachelor's degree: 11.6%
• Graduate or professional degree: 4.3%

According to the study, Iowa's least educated county is Wayne, which is located in far south-central, Iowa.