The 10 Dumbest Places In Louisiana For 2024


The dumbest places in Louisiana are Ville Platte and Oakdale for 2024 based on Saturday Night Science.

The unfortunate fact of the matter is that some places in the Pelican State have a larger percent of their population that never graduated from high school.

While the emphasis on going to college might be overblown, the fact is that not graduating from high school puts you at a significant disadvantage on average. Educational attainment might not be the best way to measure one person’s intelligence, but it does shine a light on the state.

We will use Saturday Night Science to determine what places in Louisiana have the highest percentage of adults without a high school degree.

A recent study we published found that Louisiana is the 49th smartest state in the United States, with an average IQ of 95.

But that doesn’t mean that a few cities in Louisiana are a bit slower than others due to a lack of basic education.


Table Of Contents: Top Ten | Methodology | Summary | Table


Dumbest Cities In Louisiana Map

Don’t freak out.

Some places are just smarter than others, but that says nothing about the character of the people living there. It’s another data point a real estate agent would never tell you.

For this ranking, we only looked at cities with populations greater than 5,000, leaving us 58 cities in Louisiana to rank. You can take a look at the data below.

For more Louisiana reading, check out:

The 10 Dumbest Places In Louisiana For 2024

Ville Platte, LA

Source: Wikipedia User Jerrye & Roy Klotz, MD | CC BY-SA 4.0
Overall SnackAbility

3
/10
Population: 6,364
% Adult High School Dropout: 39.0%
% Highly Educated: 7.0%
More on Ville Platte: Data | Crime | Cost Of Living | Real Estate

Oakdale, LA

Source: Wikipedia User Hot Furnace | CC BY-SA 4.0
Overall SnackAbility

4
/10
Population: 6,701
% Adult High School Dropout: 25.0%
% Highly Educated: 10.0%
More on Oakdale: Data | Cost Of Living | Real Estate

Rayne, LA

Source: Wikipedia User Chris Litherland | CC BY-SA 3.0
Overall SnackAbility

5
/10
Population: 7,223
% Adult High School Dropout: 24.0%
% Highly Educated: 8.0%
More on Rayne: Data | Crime | Cost Of Living | Real Estate

Bastrop, LA

Source: Wikipedia User Billy Hathorn | CC BY-SA 3.0
Overall SnackAbility

4
/10
Population: 9,623
% Adult High School Dropout: 22.0%
% Highly Educated: 7.0%
More on Bastrop: Data | Crime | Cost Of Living | Real Estate

Patterson, LA

Source: Wikipedia User Z28scrambler | CC BY-SA 4.0
Overall SnackAbility

5
/10
Population: 5,868
% Adult High School Dropout: 20.0%
% Highly Educated: 7.0%
More on Patterson: Data | Crime | Cost Of Living | Real Estate

Westwego, LA

Source: Wikipedia User Infrogmation of New Orleans | GFDL 1.2
Overall SnackAbility

4
/10
Population: 8,466
% Adult High School Dropout: 23.0%
% Highly Educated: 14.0%
More on Westwego: Data | Crime | Cost Of Living | Real Estate

Eunice, LA

Source: Flickr User daystreamin’ | CC BY 2.0
Overall SnackAbility

5
/10
Population: 9,440
% Adult High School Dropout: 27.0%
% Highly Educated: 15.0%
More on Eunice: Data | Crime | Cost Of Living | Real Estate

Opelousas, LA

Source: Wikipedia User Z28scrambler | CC BY-SA 3.0
Overall SnackAbility

3
/10
Population: 15,810
% Adult High School Dropout: 22.0%
% Highly Educated: 13.0%
More on Opelousas: Data | Crime | Cost Of Living | Real Estate

Tallulah, LA

Source: Wikipedia User Billy Hathorn | CC BY-SA 3.0
Overall SnackAbility

5
/10
Population: 6,290
% Adult High School Dropout: 21.0%
% Highly Educated: 14.0%
More on Tallulah: Data | Crime | Cost Of Living | Real Estate

St. Martinville, LA

Source: Wikipedia User Ken Lund from Las Vegas, Nevada, USA | CC BY-SA 2.0
Overall SnackAbility

5
/10
Population: 5,447
% Adult High School Dropout: 19.0%
% Highly Educated: 12.0%
More on St. Martinville: Data | Cost Of Living | Real Estate

Methodology: How we determined the dumbest cities in the Pelican State

We realize that formal education is only part of it when it comes to being intelligent, but on the other hand, knowing the difference between they’re, their, and there is always going to make you look pretty stupid.

So, we used Saturday Night Science to narrow down our criteria to focus on a city’s educational opportunities and what percentage of the population takes advantage of those opportunities.

In short, we came up with these criteria to determine the dumbest cities in Louisiana:

  • % of the city’s population with less than a high school education (Age 25+)
  • % of city’s population with a college degree (Age 25+)

We got the data from the U.S. Census 2018-2022 American Community Survey.

Then, our algorithm generates a rank for each place in these categories. After crunching all the numbers, a ranking of the cities in Louisiana from dumbest to brightest.

For this ranking, we used every Louisiana city with at least 5,000 residents. We updated this article for 2024, and it’s our tenth time ranking the dumbest cities in Louisiana.

There You Have It – Now That You’re Asleep

If you’re measuring the locations in Louisiana where there are a high number of dropouts and adults who never received a formal education, this is an accurate ranking.

The dumbest cities in Louisiana are Ville Platte, Oakdale, Rayne, Bastrop, Patterson, Westwego, Eunice, Opelousas, Tallulah, and St. Martinville.

If you’re also curious enough, here are the smartest places in Louisiana, according to science:

  1. Ruston
  2. Youngsville
  3. Mandeville

For more Louisiana reading, check out:

Dumbest Cities In Louisiana For 2024

Rank City Population % Adult High School Dropout % Highly Educated
1 Ville Platte, LA 6,364 39.0% 7.0%
2 Oakdale, LA 6,701 25.0% 10.0%
3 Rayne, LA 7,223 24.0% 8.0%
4 Bastrop, LA 9,623 22.0% 7.0%
5 Patterson, LA 5,868 20.0% 7.0%
6 Westwego, LA 8,466 23.0% 14.0%
7 Eunice, LA 9,440 27.0% 15.0%
8 Opelousas, LA 15,810 22.0% 13.0%
9 Tallulah, LA 6,290 21.0% 14.0%
10 St. Martinville, LA 5,447 19.0% 12.0%
11 Plaquemine, LA 6,218 22.0% 16.0%
12 Franklin, LA 6,666 18.0% 12.0%
13 Bogalusa, LA 10,689 18.0% 13.0%
14 Abbeville, LA 11,213 19.0% 14.0%
15 Jennings, LA 9,819 21.0% 16.0%
16 New Iberia, LA 28,363 20.0% 15.0%
17 Crowley, LA 11,726 23.0% 19.0%
18 St. Gabriel, LA 6,526 22.0% 19.0%
19 Marksville, LA 5,034 19.0% 16.0%
20 Breaux Bridge, LA 7,544 20.0% 18.0%
21 Carencro, LA 10,194 16.0% 15.0%
22 Gretna, LA 17,640 25.0% 25.0%
23 Donaldsonville, LA 6,799 13.0% 11.0%
24 Ponchatoula, LA 7,805 16.0% 20.0%
25 Minden, LA 11,789 14.0% 17.0%
26 Leesville, LA 5,681 15.0% 21.0%
27 Scott, LA 8,271 15.0% 21.0%
28 Sulphur, LA 21,286 13.0% 17.0%
29 Gonzales, LA 12,356 16.0% 24.0%
30 Deridder, LA 9,850 13.0% 21.0%
31 Houma, LA 33,094 13.0% 21.0%
32 Alexandria, LA 45,133 15.0% 25.0%
33 Monroe, LA 47,631 15.0% 27.0%
34 Kenner, LA 65,785 15.0% 29.0%
35 Shreveport, LA 186,183 14.0% 26.0%
36 Baker, LA 12,463 10.0% 19.0%
37 West Monroe, LA 12,987 12.0% 22.0%
38 Hammond, LA 20,239 14.0% 32.0%
39 Pineville, LA 14,357 12.0% 25.0%
40 Natchitoches, LA 17,908 12.0% 27.0%
41 Walker, LA 6,359 7.0% 22.0%
42 Lake Charles, LA 82,430 10.0% 27.0%
43 Thibodaux, LA 15,738 12.0% 34.0%
44 Slidell, LA 28,690 9.0% 29.0%
45 Baton Rouge, LA 225,500 12.0% 37.0%
46 New Orleans, LA 380,408 12.0% 40.0%
47 Grambling, LA 5,315 12.0% 41.0%
48 Broussard, LA 13,322 10.0% 36.0%
49 Harahan, LA 9,043 7.0% 36.0%
50 Covington, LA 11,444 10.0% 41.0%
51 Denham Springs, LA 9,393 4.0% 29.0%
52 Addis, LA 6,779 6.0% 32.0%
53 Lafayette, LA 121,706 9.0% 40.0%
54 Central, LA 29,518 3.0% 32.0%
55 Zachary, LA 19,401 7.0% 37.0%
56 Mandeville, LA 13,194 7.0% 48.0%
57 Youngsville, LA 15,990 6.0% 41.0%
58 Ruston, LA 22,282 7.0% 42.0%
About Nick Johnson

Nick Johnson earned his masters in Business Administration from the Drucker School At Claremont Graduate University. He has written for 39 publications across the country and ran the media relations department at Movoto, a real estate portal based in San Francisco. He has been featured in over 500 publications as an expert in real estate and as an authority on real estate trends.

Nick's the creator of the HomeSnacks YouTube channel that now has over 260,000 subscribers and is an excellent source to learn about different parts of the country.

2 thoughts on “The 10 Dumbest Places In Louisiana For 2024

  1. First of all Crowley has over 54000 people living in it where did you get your statistics what age groups did you use people in Crowley a living to be in there nineties where most of them had to do to do minimal labor because they couldn’t afford to go to college because you had to have money to go there so how can the SATs scores include the rice farmers the crawfish farmers they never have to go to college to learn how to work in the rice industry

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