The 10 Dumbest Places In Texas For 2023


The dumbest places in Texas are Pearsall and Kermit for 2023 based on Saturday Night Science.

The unfortunate fact of the matter is that some places in the Lone Star 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 Texas have the highest percentage of adults without a high school degree.

A recent study we published found that Texas is actually the 42nd smartest state in the United States, with an average IQ of 97.

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

After crunching the numbers, we ranked the ten dumbest cities in the Lone Star State.

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 337 cities in Texas to rank. You can take a look at the data below.

For more Texas reading, check out:


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


The 10 Dumbest Places In Texas For 2023

Pearsall, TX

Source: Wikipedia User Billy Hathorn at en.wikipedia | GFDL
Overall SnackAbility

5
/10
Population: 7,888
% Adult High School Dropout: 36.0%
% Highly Educated: 7.0%
More on Pearsall:  Cost Of Living | Crime Report

Kermit, TX

Source: Flickr User TexasExplorer98 | CC BY 2.0
Overall SnackAbility

6
/10
Population: 6,078
% Adult High School Dropout: 36.0%
% Highly Educated: 8.0%
More on Kermit:  Cost Of Living | Crime Report

Galena Park, TX

Source: Public domain
Overall SnackAbility

5
/10
Population: 10,770
% Adult High School Dropout: 36.0%
% Highly Educated: 8.0%
More on Galena Park:  Cost Of Living | Crime Report

Overall SnackAbility

2
/10
Population: 5,557
% Adult High School Dropout: 32.0%
% Highly Educated: 3.0%
More on Sinton:  Cost Of Living | Crime Report

Carrizo Springs, TX

Source: Wikipedia User Billy Hathorn at English Wikipedia | GFDL
Overall SnackAbility

4
/10
Population: 5,014
% Adult High School Dropout: 36.0%
% Highly Educated: 9.0%
More on Carrizo Springs:  Cost Of Living

Balch Springs, TX

Source: Public domain
Overall SnackAbility

3
/10
Population: 27,369
% Adult High School Dropout: 32.0%
% Highly Educated: 7.0%
More on Balch Springs:  Cost Of Living | Crime Report

Hutchins, TX

Source: Wikipedia User nthomas76207 | CC BY 2.0
Overall SnackAbility

4
/10
Population: 5,613
% Adult High School Dropout: 30.0%
% Highly Educated: 5.0%
More on Hutchins:  Cost Of Living | Crime Report

Raymondville, TX

Source: Public domain
Overall SnackAbility

3
/10
Population: 10,574
% Adult High School Dropout: 32.0%
% Highly Educated: 7.0%
More on Raymondville:  Cost Of Living | Crime Report

South Houston, TX

Source: Public domain
Overall SnackAbility

3
/10
Population: 16,354
% Adult High School Dropout: 37.0%
% Highly Educated: 10.0%
More on South Houston:  Cost Of Living | Crime Report

Wilmer, TX

Source: Wikipedia User nthomas76207 | CC BY 2.0
Overall SnackAbility

4
/10
Population: 5,064
% Adult High School Dropout: 30.0%
% Highly Educated: 7.0%
More on Wilmer:  | Crime Report

Methodology: How we determined the dumbest cities in the Lone Star 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 narrowed 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 Texas:

  • % 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 2017-2021 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 Texas from dumbest to brightest.

For this ranking, we used every Texas city with at least 5,000 residents. We updated this article for 2023, and it’s our tenth time ranking the dumbest cities in Texas.

There You Have It – Now That You’re Asleep

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

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

  1. University Park
  2. Highland Park
  3. Fulshear

For more Texas reading, check out:

Detailed List Of The Dumbest Cities In Texas For 2023

Rank City Population
1 Pearsall, TX 7,888
2 Kermit, TX 6,078
3 Galena Park, TX 10,770
4 Sinton, TX 5,557
5 Carrizo Springs, TX 5,014
6 Balch Springs, TX 27,369
7 Hutchins, TX 5,613
8 Raymondville, TX 10,574
9 South Houston, TX 16,354
10 Wilmer, TX 5,064
11 Socorro, TX 34,687
12 Alton, TX 17,993
13 Yoakum, TX 5,815
14 Pecos, TX 12,467
15 Penitas, TX 6,206
16 Forest Hill, TX 13,797
17 Roma, TX 11,451
18 Brookshire, TX 5,188
19 Brownfield, TX 9,065
20 San Benito, TX 24,812
21 Brady, TX 5,129
22 Marlin, TX 5,512
23 Donna, TX 16,743
24 Sansom Park, TX 5,363
25 Freeport, TX 10,864
26 Gladewater, TX 6,189
27 Monahans, TX 7,614
28 Kirby, TX 8,134
29 Palmview, TX 14,654
30 Muleshoe, TX 5,781
31 Seagoville, TX 18,263
32 Everman, TX 6,148
33 Hereford, TX 15,043
34 Robstown, TX 10,372
35 Dumas, TX 14,565
36 Alamo, TX 19,644
37 Port Isabel, TX 5,208
38 Center, TX 5,197
39 Willis, TX 6,410
40 Gatesville, TX 15,997
41 San Juan, TX 35,384
42 Port Arthur, TX 55,757
43 Hondo, TX 8,332
44 Lamesa, TX 8,685
45 Luling, TX 5,411
46 Cameron, TX 5,350
47 Navasota, TX 7,614
48 Los Fresnos, TX 8,023
49 Fort Stockton, TX 8,433
50 Mercedes, TX 16,274
51 Big Spring, TX 26,199
52 Pharr, TX 78,997
53 Mexia, TX 6,946
54 Cleveland, TX 7,515
55 Littlefield, TX 5,991
56 Pasadena, TX 151,964
57 Cuero, TX 8,200
58 Uvalde, TX 15,374
59 Livingston, TX 5,597
60 Dayton, TX 8,569
61 Elsa, TX 5,783
62 Kaufman, TX 6,796
63 River Oaks, TX 7,623
64 Liberty, TX 8,227
65 Sweetwater, TX 10,605
66 Corsicana, TX 24,589
67 Gonzales, TX 7,138
68 La Feria, TX 6,894
69 Hidalgo, TX 13,939
70 Bonham, TX 10,295
71 Del Rio, TX 34,831
72 Levelland, TX 12,854
73 Vidor, TX 9,944
74 Vernon, TX 10,206
75 Taylor, TX 16,154
76 Laredo, TX 254,697
77 Brownsville, TX 185,849
78 Rusk, TX 5,501
79 Bellmead, TX 10,487
80 Edna, TX 5,890
81 Wharton, TX 8,595
82 Crockett, TX 6,441
83 Mcgregor, TX 5,345
84 Alice, TX 18,001
85 El Campo, TX 12,280
86 Mount Pleasant, TX 16,067
87 Plainview, TX 20,180
88 Beeville, TX 13,780
89 Humble, TX 16,603
90 Seguin, TX 29,293
91 Port Lavaca, TX 11,654
92 Pampa, TX 16,817
93 Jacksonville, TX 14,029
94 Baytown, TX 82,543
95 Mesquite, TX 149,848
96 Primera, TX 5,167
97 Granite Shoals, TX 5,086
98 Rockdale, TX 5,378
99 Ennis, TX 19,942
100 Gainesville, TX 17,146
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.

12 thoughts on “The 10 Dumbest Places In Texas For 2023

  1. WOW this is embarrassingly inaccurate for the people who live in these towns. Not to mention really really inconsiderate.

  2. I would like to invite whoever wrote this article to come to South Texas to our University of Texas RVG and take a refresher course in research journalism. I have lived in South Texas for 39 years. Although I am not Hispanic, I am a semi-retired bilingual teacher who has worked at the elementary school in Sullivan City. It is active and vital; a school going places. Sullivan City is located in LaJoya ISD, where I often work as a substitute. LaJoya places a lot of emphasis on the arts and music as well as academics and sports.

    This article doesn’t even mention that a lot of these students don’t speak English and come from poor families. Due to its location, the community may always have a lot of newly arrived immigrants who are from disadvantaged backgrounds. It might mean fewer high school diplomas among them to begin with, but so help me, it doesn’t mean that these people or the city is “dumb.” Many of even the poorest people still support their kids in their education and that is SMART.

    1. It is pretty clear this “writer” is not well educated by any means. It’s interesting they would choose to write an article calling out supposed “dumb” people in such a hypocritical fashion. I get that he’s an un-educated troll-type writer who relies on click bait, nonsensical journalism to make a living, but this article just makes him look really foolish.

  3. I think you need to change your assertion on the city of Haskell! It is one of the finest places in the state of Texas to live!

  4. I agree with Linda Teuling. The authors of this article are pretty dumb and uneducated on how to do research. It should be pretty obvious that the so-called dumbest cities are also those likely to have the highest ratios of uneducated illegal alien agricultural workers.

  5. Speaking of dumb; this so-called “article” is as ignorant as it is racist. Some of the adults who do not have degrees were explicitly swatted with wooden boards for practicing elements of Hispanic culture in at least one of these towns. In addition, as immigrants they were assigned to a 1st grade class even if they were 15 and well educated. They were denied the opportunity to advance more than one grade per year, and many students were required to repeat grades; not to mention separate (and unequal) facilities. If you create a hellish, racist schooling environment, and then call people “stupid” for choosing not to subject themselves to that level of degradation, that’s simply adding insult to injury. While practices today are less explicitly racially biased, there is a vast inequity that is not statistically randomized, as one would expect in a meritorious society. And just because you tried to write a “clever” article to score a check and make a living doesn’t absolve you of responsibility for perpetuating racist notions of dumbness.

  6. It seems a bit hypocritical to judge so called ‘dumb’ people when you struggle considerably with proper grammar. If you plan on throwing rocks at your neighbors house, you better live in a house made of steel.

  7. This article is light on facts for example according to the census bureau, Yoakum had a population of over 5800, and a rate of people under 25 without a high school diploma if 22% Go to the census bureau American factfinder, so it appears your info is in error

  8. Talk about dumb, look at what the author wrote: “In the categories of SAT scores and college graduation rate, Texas ranked as the 39th dumbest state in America, a little smarter than New Mexico, but dumber than Georgia.” If you are the first dumbest state that is bad. If you are the 50th dumbest state, you are the smartest. So the 39th dumbest state is actually pretty good!

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