Lexington, Louisville ranked on ‘most educated cities’ list. Which was on top?

Lexington and Louisville both made the top 100 of WalletHub’s list of America’s 150 biggest cities, ranked from most to least educated.

Lexington was ranked No. 24 on the list, keeping in the top 25, and Louisville stayed in the top 100 at a ranking of 94.

How WalletHub scored each city

Researchers at WalletHub gathered a list of the 150 most populated cities and graded each on a 100-point scale by measuring two “key” dimensions: “Educational attainment” and “the quality of education and attainment gap.”

To measure those dimensions, WalletHub said they used 11 metrics they deemed relevant. The data was gathered as of June 1.

Worth 80% of the total score at equal weights are the following metrics:

• Percent of adults aged 25 and older with a high school diploma or higher
• Percent of adults aged 25 and older with at least some college experience or an associate’s degree or higher
• Percent of adults aged 25 and older with a bachelor’s degree or higher
• Percent of adults ages 25 and older with a graduate or professional degree

Worth 20% of the total score at varying weights are the following metrics:

• Quality of public school system
• Average quality of universities
• Enrolled students in Top 791 universities per capita
• Number of Summer learning opportunities per capita
• Racial education gap
• Gender education gap
• Education equality index score

A breakdown of KY city scores

Lexington-Fayette County was ranked No. 24 on the list with a total score of 65.44. The city’s educational attainment was ranked No. 24 and a quality of education and attainment gap was ranked No. 27.

Louisville-Jefferson County, a city almost double the size of Lexington population-wise, fell in the ranking due to its low quality of education and attainment gap score, according to WalletHub.

Louisville was ranked 94th on the list with a total score of 49.19. Educational attainment in Louisville received a ranking of 81 and the quality of education and attainment gap was ranked 102.

The highest-rated schools in Kentucky

According to previous Herald-Leader reporting, the 2024-25 K-12 test scores from the Kentucky Department of Education show three of the 10-highest rated Kentucky high schools to be in Jefferson County. No Fayette County high schools were in the top 10.

The test scores show a Fayette County school to be the highest ranked middle school in the Commonwealth. No other Fayette or Jefferson County middle schools made the list.

One Fayette County school was ranked in the top-10 for elementary schools in Kentucky.