Ask questions:

·         Does your county have a relatively high level of educational attainment, e.g., do a high percentage of your residents have a college degree?

·         Is the percentage of high school graduates or college graduates increasing?

Look at other indicators:

·         “Education: Educational attainment, 2008-2012” – Counties with more than 20,000 people can find more recent data by using this indicator.

·          “County types: County policy type codes” – Is your county classified as a “low education” county?

·         “Income and poverty: Per capita income” or “Income and Poverty: Poverty rate, overall” – If your county has low levels of educational attainment, does it also have relatively low levels of income and/or high poverty rates?

·         “Employment: Employment by industry” – Does your local economy provide jobs that require high or low levels of education?

Dig deeper:

·         Look at the county rankings for your state and/or view maps to see how your county compares to others.

·         Download data for your county or state to see how many people are in each educational attainment category.

·         Take a Big Picture view of your county.

·         If you have specific questions, send us an e-mail.