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.
The 10 Most Boring Places In Texas
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
/10
% Adult High School Dropout: 36.0%
% Highly Educated: 7.0%
More on Pearsall: Cost Of Living | Crime Report
/10
% Adult High School Dropout: 36.0%
% Highly Educated: 8.0%
More on Kermit: Cost Of Living | Crime Report
/10
% Adult High School Dropout: 36.0%
% Highly Educated: 8.0%
More on Galena Park: Cost Of Living | Crime Report
/10
% Adult High School Dropout: 32.0%
% Highly Educated: 3.0%
More on Sinton: Cost Of Living | Crime Report
/10
% Adult High School Dropout: 36.0%
% Highly Educated: 9.0%
More on Carrizo Springs: Cost Of Living
/10
% Adult High School Dropout: 32.0%
% Highly Educated: 7.0%
More on Balch Springs: Cost Of Living | Crime Report
/10
% Adult High School Dropout: 30.0%
% Highly Educated: 5.0%
More on Hutchins: Cost Of Living | Crime Report
/10
% Adult High School Dropout: 32.0%
% Highly Educated: 7.0%
More on Raymondville: Cost Of Living | Crime Report
/10
% Adult High School Dropout: 37.0%
% Highly Educated: 10.0%
More on South Houston: Cost Of Living | Crime Report
/10
% 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:
- University Park
- Highland Park
- Fulshear
For more Texas reading, check out:
- Best Places To Live In Texas
- Cheapest Places To Live In Texas
- Most Dangerous Places In Texas
- Richest Cities In Texas
- Safest Places In Texas
- Worst Places To Live In Texas
- Most Expensive Places To Live In Texas
I wouldn’t call Bellmead or Marlin “south Texas”…….
WOW this is embarrassingly inaccurate for the people who live in these towns. Not to mention really really inconsiderate.
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.
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.
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!
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.
Thanks for your vote of confidence.
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.
And just exactly where do these “facts” come from?
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.
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
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!