Educated Legislators

From Outside The Beltway, an interesting map looking at the education level of state legislators.

I found the results to be surprising. Playing to stereotype, I would have expected the blue state legislatures to have more education. Instead, of the top five states, it’s split between two red, two blue, and one purple (color coding defined by the last two elections). The bottom five have one red and four blue. On the other hand, if you look at advanced degrees, it plays a little more to type. Nebraska and Wyoming, of all states, have the most doctors. Nebraska ranks high across the board. Texas has the most lawyers.

Also a little surprising, the southern states do somewhat favorably. Georgia, Alabama, and South Carolina all top 80% while Louisiana is close to it (Mississippi is not, and Arkansas further still). Less surprising is that strongholds of those who went to state universities is strongest in the south, midwest, and mountain west, and the weakest are in the northeast. In the west, Utah and Idaho are outliers, which is absolutely no surprise: BYU.

Those where most of the legislators went in-state are not surprising. Weak in the northeast and sparsely populated mountain states (where you might have to leave the state to get into the program you’re looking for), stronger in the middle states. Notably, Utah is a pretty big exception to this, in part because of BYU (and two solid state U’s).

The lawyer-loving states are mostly in the east, as you might expect, and Texas, which you probably wouldn’t. More common in the well-populated states (but not really California) and quite rare in the rural states.

Anyhow, no political points here. I just found the map to be extremely interesting and thought that I would pass it along.