Hawai'i high in degree holders, census data show

Advertiser Staff

More than one-quarter of island residents age 25 and older have a college degree, placing Hawai'i 16th among states and the District of Columbia, according to data released yesterday by the U.S. Census Bureau.

An analysis of a 2002 sampling of American Community Survey data indicates 27.9 percent of Hawai'i residents in that age group possess a bachelor's degree or better.

The national rate was 25.9 percent.

On the municipal level, the city of Honolulu ranked 20th nationwide, while the entire county ranked 109th, which is near the median of U.S. counties with populations of 250,000 or more.

Seattle topped the list of big-city college education rates with 48.8 percent of its population 25 years and older having at least a bachelor's degree. Other large cities (with a population of 250,000 or more) with a high percentage of college degree holders were Raleigh, N.C. (48.0 percent), San Francisco (47.8 percent) and Atlanta (41.2 percent). Honolulu's rate was 31.4 percent.

States with some of the highest percentages of college graduates were Massachusetts (35.5 percent), Colorado (33.5 percent), Maryland (33.1 percent), Connecticut (32.9 percent) and Virginia (31.7 percent). Additionally, 42.5 percent of District of Columbia residents age 25 and older had bachelor's degrees.

Of the 231 counties with populations of 250,000 or more surveyed, three of the four with the highest percentage of college graduates were in the Washington, D.C.-Arlington-Alexandria metro area: Howard County (58.2 percent) and Montgomery County (56.3 percent) in Maryland and Fairfax County (55.9 percent) in Virginia. The rate for Ho-nolulu, as a county, was 29.3 percent.