United States - Educational attainment - persons 25 years and over - percent bachelor's degree or higher by State

Value for the US (Percent): 31.5%

Data item: Bachelor's degree or higher, percent of persons age 25 years+, 2014-2018

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey (ACS) and Puerto Rico Community Survey (PRCS), 5-Year Estimates. The PRCS is part of the Census Bureau's ACS, customized for Puerto Rico. Both Surveys are updated every year.

Definition

High School Graduates include people whose highest degree was a high school diploma or its equivalent, people who attended college but did not receive a degree, and people who received an associate's, bachelor's, master's, or professional or doctorate degree. People who reported completing the 12th grade but not receiving a diploma are not included. Persons with a Bachelor's Degree or Higher are those who have received a bachelor's degree from a college or university, or a master's, professional, or doctorate degree. For the complete definition, go to ACS subject definitions "Educational Attainment."

These data include only persons 25 years old and over. The percentages are obtained by dividing the counts of graduates by the total number of persons 25 years old and over.

Source and Accuracy

This Fact is based on data collected in the American Community Survey (ACS) and the Puerto Rico Community Survey (PRCS) conducted annually by the U.S. Census Bureau. A sample of over 3.5 million housing unit addresses is interviewed each year over a 12 month period. This Fact (estimate) is based on five years of ACS and PRCS sample data and describes the average value of person, household and housing unit characteristics over this period of collection.

Statistics from all surveys are subject to sampling and nonsampling error. Sampling error is the uncertainty between an estimate based on a sample and the corresponding value that would be obtained if the estimate were based on the entire population (as from a census). Measures of sampling error are provided in the form of margins of error for all estimates included with ACS and PRCS published products. The Census Bureau recommends that data users incorporate this information into their analyses, as sampling error in survey estimates could impact the conclusions drawn from the results. The data for each geographic area are presented together with margins of error at Using margins of error. A more detailed explanation of margins of error and a demonstration of how to use them is provided below.

For more information on sampling and estimation methodology, confidentiality, and sampling and nonsampling errors, please see the Multiyear Accuracy (US) and the Multiyear Accuracy (Puerto Rico) documents at "Documentation - Accuracy of the data."

Margin of Error

As mentioned above, ACS estimates are based on a sample and are subject to sampling error. The margin of error measures the degree of uncertainty caused by sampling error. The margin of error is used with an ACS estimate to construct a confidence interval about the estimate. The interval is formed by adding the margin of error to the estimate (the upper bound) and subtracting the margin of error from the estimate (the lower bound). It is expected with 90 percent confidence that the interval will contain the full population value of the estimate. The following example is for demonstrating purposes only. Suppose the ACS reported that the percentage of people in a state who were 25 years and older with a bachelor's degree was 21.3 percent and that the margin of error associated with this estimate was 0.7 percent. By adding and subtracting the margin of error from the estimate, we calculate the 90-percent confidence interval for this estimate:

21.3% - 0.7% = 20.6% => Lower-bound estimate
21.3% + 0.7% = 22.0% => Upper-bound estimate

Therefore, we can be 90 percent confident that the percent of the population 25 years and older having a bachelor's degree in a state falls somewhere between 20.6 percent and 22.0 percent.

For this Fact, its estimates and margins of error along with percents and percent margins of errors can be found on American Community Survey, Data Profiles-Social Characteristics

More Information

• Questions on the ACS form and why we ask
• ACS methodology
• Education data from other sources