I think this has a lot more to do with the main types of employment in a state than political leanings. In a state where, say, mining or farming are a major source of income, people may be less inclined to seek out formal higher education. In a state like Utah, for example (which is VERY red), there is a large info. tech. sector and the majority of adults have a four year degree.
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.
The biggest geographical contrast in Virginia is between Northern Virginia (the DC suburbs) and the rest of the state. Though politically this area is similar to Richmond and the Virginia Beach area.
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)
What? Indiana is on the list. Most Midwestern states are either blue or swing states with the exception of, wait for it, Indiana. The only state on this list that didn't vote for Trump is Nevada.
Per the same study, here's a list of the 10 most educated states by % w/bachelor's degree. Guess which way they voted:
10. Minnesota
9. New York
8. New Hampshire
7. Vermont
6. Virginia
5. New Jersey
4. Connecticut
3. Maryland
2. Colorado
1. Massachusetts.
South Carolina, an East Coast state, ranks 39th. Wyoming, a deep red state in the West, ranks 40th; just outside of this bottom 10 list. New York is 9th, Georgia is 24th, NC is 26th.
Of the 20 best educated states by this measure, 3 voted for Trump - Kansas at 16, Utah at 15, and Texas at 20th. Of the 20 least educated, only 2 (Nevada and New Mexico, which had large populations turned off by his racism) did not vote for Trump.
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.
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.
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).
It's the other way around... It's people in the areas left behind, often through no fault of their own, that are more susceptible to the Republican ideology.
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.
I think it says something about the gentrification of college campuses that my home state of Indiana is internationally very well-known for its colleges (IU, Purdue, Notre Dame, etc.), yet relatively few of those degrees actually go to Hoosiers. Either that, or in-state students move away once they get a degree, which in that case I wouldn't blame them, LOL.
Eventually, you just need to look reality in the mouth. You can come up with every weird rationalization for why these states have lesser accomplishments, but the writing is on the wall. The American Bible Belt is, at least at the top governmental levels, an embarrassment. It prioritizes religion and football over progress and education. As long as that happens, people will have plenty of pejorative things to say about it. And they won't be wrong.
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.
The numbers have crept up a bit since the last iteration of this quiz. Personally, I'm not of the opinion that college education is an unalloyed good. If current trends continue, nearly everyone will have a college degree, yet the average person will be just as ignorant. Standards are already shockingly low, even at top universities. And of course the cost is ludicrous.
^ 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.
Not having a college degree does not mean you are uneducated. Most people who do tough work like mining, building a house or maintenance do not have a college degree. Not because they are not smart enough but because money and I bet most college kids could not screw a wheel on a car.
So the first 12 years of school don't count at all as education? If you graduate high school, of course you are educated...there are different levels of education, and different ways to educate oneself. You don't have to have a four year degree from a traditional university to call yourself educated. Of course you are right that educated and intelligent are not the same thing.
Doesn't surprise me that many of the states are southern where in many cases they aren't even allowed to teach about evolution etc. Also most on the list voted for Trump. 'Nuff said right there frankly. Even not making the list is no great feat given how low America scores in international rankings about education. Maybe if they stopped teaching to a standardized test and focused more on critical thinking skills, they'd be better off.
Per the same study, here's a list of the 10 most educated states by % w/bachelor's degree. Guess which way they voted:
10. Minnesota
9. New York
8. New Hampshire
7. Vermont
6. Virginia
5. New Jersey
4. Connecticut
3. Maryland
2. Colorado
1. Massachusetts.
South Carolina, an East Coast state, ranks 39th. Wyoming, a deep red state in the West, ranks 40th; just outside of this bottom 10 list. New York is 9th, Georgia is 24th, NC is 26th.
Of the 20 best educated states by this measure, 3 voted for Trump - Kansas at 16, Utah at 15, and Texas at 20th. Of the 20 least educated, only 2 (Nevada and New Mexico, which had large populations turned off by his racism) did not vote for Trump.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_educational_attainment
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obama-Trump_voters
https://www.politico.com/2016-election/results/map/president/
https://www.270towin.com/states/West_Virginia
Conservative + educated. Think prairie home companion and you're close.
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.
Total coincidence.