Top 10 Least-Educated U.S. States

Yeah, because a bundle of federal civil servants, politicians and lobbyists live in Virginia. They let West Virginia swim for itself.

West Virginia broke away from Virginia in 1863 over the Civil War and slavery--the mostly mountainous counties in WV had no use for a slave economy and wanted to remain part of the Union.

Same. Facepalm.

As Dwight from The Office would say: false. Red has nothing to do with it. Most of these states are red, but most red states are not uneducated. There isn't a single East Coast state or Midwestern state in this list, to illustrate my point, even though the East Coast is generally more and more red the further south you go, and the Midwest is almost entirely red. There isn't a significant difference between the education level of the average New Yorker, for example, than the average North Carolinian or Georgian. The Southern states that were the most devastated by the Civil War have never fully recovered economically, and it's this lack of wealth that has led to a dearth in education (I'm from VA, btw)

Indiana wasn't on the list when I made the comment. Must have been updated since then. And no, you're wrong about Midwestern states not voting for Trump. He actually carried the majority of Midwestern states by a considerable margin. It is true that blue-collar non-union workers tend to vote Republican. Union members on the other hand tend to vote Democrat. West Virginia, the least educated state in the US, has always been a solid blue state until recently, because of coal miners' unions. When Hillary was ignorant and out-of-touch enough to actually go to WV and say "We're going to bankrupt the coal industry!" during her campaign, you can see why they ended up voting for Trump even though a lot of them voted for Obama. Remember that a significant number of Obama voters (9.2% according to a study by the Democracy Fund Voter Study Group) voted for Trump in 2016. According to the same study, a total of around 13% of Trump voters had voted for Obama in 2012.

Here. Please use facts next time instead of ignorant, uneducated stereotypes ;)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obama-Trump_voters

https://www.politico.com/2016-election/results/map/president/

Just think of red states and you will get 9/10.

Except that West Virginia, the most uneducated state in the country, has been solid blue for the last 50 years or so.

Where did you get that information from? West Virginia has been a stronghold for Republican presidential candidates since the 2000 Presidential elections. All of West Virginia's house members, as well as the State Governor, are Republicans.

Here. Political issues are almost always more nuanced than either side wants to admit.

https://www.270towin.com/states/West_Virginia

Wow, this is too rich. First he makes an objective statement, then when he's called out on it for it being false, he backtracks and excuses himself by relativizing the topic and saying things are more nuanced, then proceeds to link a webpage that directly objectively contradicts him. Quote from that page (pay attention to the last sentence): "Primarily Republican from 1900 until the Great Depression, the state was then reliably Democratic, with few exceptions through Bill Clinton's 2nd election in 1996. Since then, the state has become solidly Republican, with that party winning by an increasing margin in each election from 2000 through 2016". Good job. Keep on not letting reality bother your illusionary world. Fake news indeed.

Remember, a pretty decent percentage of Kansas' population is in Wichita or the Kansas City metro- both areas with pretty high education levels. In Nebraska, a little over a third of the population is in the Omaha metro area, and a decent chunk is also in the Lincoln area. While both of these states are very rural in terms of space, the people are highly concentrated. Alaska (where the overwhelming majority of people are in the Anchorage area), Idaho (where most people are in the Boise area), and Nevada (literally 2/3's of the state is in the county with Las Vegas) are in a similar boat.

Farming is really scientific these days and many farmers go to ag schools. A lot of the universities with "state" in their name have significant agriculture programs (eg, Ohio State, Iowa State, Washington State).

I just started typing the stereotypical states where the population is generally disadvantaged. There was an article about Mississippi on the BBC newssite just this week, so that was my first guess.

And most of the southern states were solidly democratic at the state government level until 2010!

Kentucky, until 2016, had the only county in the country that had never voted republican until Trump came along (and no, it is not the county with Louisville or Lexington), and was the last southern state with a Democratic state house.

Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, West Virginia and Arkansas are among the most ancestorly (sp?) Democratic states in the country.

Love to see how this correlates with per capita spending on education state by state

I'm sure it's entirely coincidence that these also happen to be mainly the country's most religious states as well.

Total coincidence.

Exactly. I tried to refute it, but there's too many of them!

Well you sure proved everybody wrong with your comment.

True. But it's just as epistemically weak/suspect to believe that simply by refuting causation all correlation should be written off as information bias that lacks probative value.

^ I agree. My four years of University in the US taught me nothing (save a more in depth study of American History, and American pronunciations) that I hadn't already learned at the equivalent of a US Junior College in the Netherlands. What a shame! In our parents' generation a high school education in the US was the equivalent of a college degree. It allowed them to function at a higher level than bachelor degree holders today. That's why so many of us have to opt for post-graduate degrees... to actually learn something useful.

Educated and intelligent aren't the same thing. If your schooling ended with a high school diploma then yes, you are uneducated.

More like indoctrination.

Phil is correct - what diversity of opinion exists in academia? Parrot your prof, pass the class.

Cool, another quiz to stereotype sections of the country and puff up the fragile egos of those who don't live there.