Hawai'i ranks 10th in the nation in the percentage of high school graduates among residents age 25 and older, and 16th in percentage of residents with a college degree, according to a U.S. Census Bureau report released yesterday.

The "Educational Attainment in the United States: 2007" report, based on data collected in the 2007 American Community Survey and from other sources, said that 89.4 percent of Hawai'i adults in that age group had at least a high school diploma.

That's an increase from the 87.4 percent reported in a 2000 Census Bureau survey.

The 2007 estimates also show that 92.4 percent of U.S.-born adults in the state graduated from high school, compared with 78.9 percent of foreign-born adults.

The report said 29.2 percent of Hawai'i adults age 25 and older had at least a bachelor's degree, up from 26.3 percent in 2000. Among U.S.-born residents, 30.6 percent had a college degree, while 24.3 percent of foreign-born residents did.

Nationally, 84 percent of adults age 25 and older completed high school, while 27 percent were holding at least a bachelor's degree in 2007.

At least 91 percent of Wyoming and Minnesota residents graduated from high school, tops in the nation. The lowest numbers were in Mississippi, Texas and Louisiana, where less than 80 percent completed high school.

Nearly half of the District of Columbia's residents have a college degree, highest level nationwide. Also scoring high were Colorado, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts and New Jersey. At the bottom of the list were Arkansas, Mississippi and West Virginia, where less than 20 percent of adults age 25 and older had earned degrees.

The Census Bureau report provided incentive for obtaining a college degree by estimating that workers with a bachelor's degree on average earned about $20,000 more a year ($46,805) than workers with just a high school diploma ($26,894).

A larger proportion of women (85 percent) than men (84 percent) completed high school nationally, but a larger proportion of men had earned a bachelor's degree: 28 percent compared with 27 percent, the report said.

Men earned more than women at each level of educational attainment, according to the estimates. The percentage of female-to-male earnings among year-round, full-time workers 25 and older was 77 percent.