A new study ranks Maryland as the second most educated state in the country, right behind Massachusetts. Maryland was also ranked second for “highest percentage of graduate- or professional-degree holders.”

In the study, WalletHub examined the key factors of a well-educated population and compared all 50 states across 18 metrics.

From Fox 45 News:

The ranking is based on two factors: “educational attainment” and “quality of education.” Maryland was ranked third and second in those, respectively.

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Educational attainment includes the share of adults aged 25 and older with varying degrees of higher education.

Quality of education and “attainment gap” looks at the quality of school systems, Blue Ribbon Schools per capita, average quality of universities, enrolled students in top universities per capita, the public high school graduation rate, national test scores, presence of free community-college education, the racial gap and gender gap in educational attainment, and the presence of voucher programs and summer-learning legislation.

In a separate study conducted by Wallethub, the Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV metropolitan statistical area (MSA) ranked #3 for most educated cities list with Baltimore-Columbia-Towson, MD MSA ranking #23 out of 150.