Forbes Names Grand Rapids One Of America’s Smartest Cities

Forbes Magazine has bestowed yet another honor upon Grand Rapids. They've listed us on their list of the top 10 smartest cities in America. 

Grand Rapids ranks number four on the list behind Boston, Pittburgh, and San Jose.

The magazine determine who would be included on the list by scoring the nation’s 380 metropolitan statistical areas based on three criteria: growth rate in the number of residents with at least a bachelor’s degree from 2000 through 2013 (25% weighting in final score), giving greater weight to the percentage point increase in the share of the population that is college-educated over that span (50%), and factoring in the share of educated people in the population in 2013 (25%).

For the most part, the top 10 on our list of the 51 largest metro areas in the nation is dominated by places with large concentrations of colleges.

Here's the breakdown on Grand Rapids:

Share Of Population That Is College-Educated, 2013: 30.6%
Increase In Share Since 2000: 7.9 percentage points
Increase In College-Educated Population Since 2000: 92.7%