Americans like to think they’re the best when it comes to just about everything – including smarts.
But these states are dumb.
Where exactly? We used Saturday Night Science to determine the states where the most dummies live.
We created an index of every state that combines the percentage of adults without a high school diploma with those without a college degree.
And if that sounds too smart for you, better stop here.
On the map
The dumbest states in America, mapped
Source: HomeSnacks
America’s next dumbest state is Mississippi.
I couldn’t decide, is Mississippi more Patrick or Barney?
Just kidding, Mississippi. You guys are pretty dopey though. Mississippi has the highest number of high school dropouts in America at 11%.
Even the criminals are dumb in Mississippi (home alone)
What’s the deal anyways guys? Mississippi is actually a really pretty place, and the weather isn’t too bad most of the year. There’s a lot to do, and everyone’s really friendly. Maybe they just don’t like sitting in class all day and they’d rather hit the trails or go find a lake somewhere.
They like to hunt, go to church often, and make some really good food.
Maybe we should stop bullying Mississippi. If we’re going to pick on someone, let’s pick on California. They deserve it. (dumb blonde)
And who’s our runner up for the stupidest state in America? Hello Louisian-uhhh.
1 in 9 people in Louisiana never finished high school, and 1 in 20 never even made it to high school. What about college? 23% of residents have a college degree in the Bayou State, which is the 5th lowest in our great nation.
Louisiana native Bobby Bouche sure was stupid, but at least he helped his team do something. What did the rest of the people in louisiana do that was productive to help win something?
Louisiana tries though. It’s home to the Frog Capital of the world and the duck capital of america. That’s cool.
Famous people from Louisiana include DJ Khaled, Richard Simmons and LIttle Wayne. Any Little Wayne fans out there? No?
West Virginia is next up on our list. That’s probably not a surprise to anyone I bet.
There are less people who went to college in West Virginia than anywhere else in the whole country. Only 19% of west virginians earned a college degree.
These guys are probably way smarter than a lot of people in West Virginia (BB).
Of course, we have to be fair, here. West Virginia has given us a lot of things. Pepperoni Rolls, banjos and overalls to name a few.
Let’s look at some West virginia stereotypes. Everyone’s a hillbilly. Cousins get married. There’s no arts and culture. Everyone’s a redneck.
Are these accurate? Let us know in the comments below.
Stupid Girl. All ya had you wasted. All ya had you wasted.
If you wanna see some real blockheads, head on down to the great state of Arkansas.
(blockhead charlie brown)
Considering the fact that only 22% of residents have a college degree and that 10% never finished high school, Arkansas residents could’t get too upset if we thought they were a little….dopey.
Arkansas is home to the mysterious Fouke Monster who has supposedly been seen crawling along the bogs and marshes down there. Sorta like a swamp thing Bigfoot guy. I’ll bet if the fouke monster took a spelling test, he’d get an F.
Arkies as they call themselves, have a tendency to call lunch, dinner and dinner, supper. That’s dumb. But i reckon yaal think thats purty fine though, dontcha?
Neva-duh!
Here in Nevada, 14% of people never finished high school, and barely more than 1 in 5 was smart enough to go to college. Maybe that’s because there’s only like 2 colleges in the entire state?
What else is nevada known for? Deserts (stupid), Death Valley (stupid!) and Las Vegas (not so stupid)
Actually, they can’t be that dumb in Nevada. After all, every day tons of stupid people come there and hand them all their money. Maybe we’re the dummies.
Maybe thaaaat’s why all the roads are all straight in Nevada. They cant figure out directions anywhere.
We go back to the south, where we’re pretty much going to stay for the rest of this dopey drive. We start our tour of dumb southern states with Alabama.
After all, Forest Gump was from alabama and he was really stupid.
In Alabama, school definitely isn’t cool. A whopping 1 in 20 people didn’t even 9th grade. Then they grew up and were dummies the rest of their lives.
People like this: Chrissy
There’s one thing people in Alabama really love. College football. You either cheer for Auburn or Alabama. And if you pick Auburn to beat Alabama, you’re even stupider than I thought.
Did you know Alabama is the third poorest state, too? Maybe there’s something to that.
Fried green tomatoes. Who eats that?
Actually, they can’t be that dumb in Alabama, they figured out a way to create an artificial ski resort in the middle of the south. (goofy skiing?) That takes some real brains.
Sure, Alabama is filled with hard working, honest Americans who care about their communities. That’s c o m m u n . forget it.
Next, we take a quick pit stop in Kentucky.
Home to horse racing and bourbon makers, Kentucky is actually a pretty cool place to live. Maybe the folks here just want to live the simple life – and don’t care about getting ahead in life. Maybe we shouldn’t judge them?
Just kidding, let’s judge.
Kentucky gets the top 5 in three categories: number of high school graduates, number of people who never even went to high school, and number of people who went to college.
But we don’t think you really seem to care much about that, do you Kentucky? Kelly Bundy
Kentucky is actually home to two really good universities – Louisville and Kentucky. And only one US president was born in Kentucky – but he might have been our best president ever. That’s Abraham Lincoln you idiot.
Right next door to the big ole state of Texas, it gets worse. New Mexico is even dumber. While they have a few less high school dropouts than Texas, they have far fewer people who went to college here. It’s like some New Mexicans finished high school and then quit. Quitters!
Actually, New Mexico is home to the Los Alamos National Laboratory, which is home to 11,000 of some of the smartest people in the country. It’s very top secret and they make nuclear weapons and stuff. So maybe we better not mess with em too much. How do these scientists deal with living next to so many dummies? (yuck) When you go to a restaurant in New Mexico, they ask you red or green? That’s it – two choices for chili. If they have New Mexicans any more options, they probably couldn’t handle it.
Other things that make New Mexico dumb – a bunch of their residents think they see UFOs all the time. We know aliens arent real. That’s silly.
Our next stop on our idiotic quest through America takes us to Texas. Hee-Haw!
Texas actually tied with Tennessee in its dumb rankings, but we broke the tie because Texas has the second highest number of people without a high school diploma in the US. 17% of people in Texas never even finished high school.
The only state with more high school dropouts? California. (Kardashians) Yeah, they’re pretty dumb in California, too.
However, we have to point out that Texas is actually in the middle of the pack when it comes to college degree holders. That means there are a lot of really smart people in Texas (show it) and a lot of really dumb people in Texas (goofy).
But, people in Texas gave us barbecue, guns and the Cowboys, so that counts for something right?
Here’s a Texas snowman. That’s pretty clever, right?
These boots are pretty nifty.
And this is incredible! (big truck). Way to go Texas guy. You made a big truck.
The verdict
So what’s the dumbest state in America for 2026?
Are we seeing a pattern here? The South isn’t ideal for intelligence.
Also, we’re not saying the people in these states are bad. We’re just making an observation that, as a majority, they’re not the brightest bulbs in the room.
And, interestingly enough, the dumbest cities in the country come from states nowhere near the top ten here.
Saturday Night Science
How We Calculated The Dumbest States In The United States For 2026
To rank the dumbest States in the USA of A, we used data from the American Community Survey combined with Saturday Night Science.
We started by getting data from the 2020-2024 American Community Survey for every state. We then looked at our criteria:
- % of the state’s population with less than a high school education (Age 25+)
- % of state’s population without a college degree (Age 25+)
We ranked each state from 1 to 50, with 1 being the state with the dumbest. As it turns out, the dumbest states in America mostly voted for Trump.
Who woulda guessed?
We updated this report for 2026. This report is our eleventh time ranking the dumbest states in America
The full plate
All 50 states, ranked by smarts
Click any column to sort. Search by state name.
| Rank | State | Dumb Score | Population | % Adult High School Dropout | % Highly Educated |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mississippi | 3.25 | 2,946,779 | 13.0% | 25.0% |
| 2 | Louisiana | 3.75 | 4,611,961 | 14.0% | 27.0% |
| 3 | West Virginia | 4.50 | 1,778,373 | 12.0% | 24.0% |
| 4 | Arkansas | 5.25 | 3,049,391 | 12.0% | 25.0% |
| 5 | Nevada | 7.50 | 3,184,612 | 12.0% | 28.0% |
| 6 | Alabama | 8.75 | 5,086,768 | 12.0% | 28.0% |
| 7 | Kentucky | 9.00 | 4,534,824 | 11.0% | 27.0% |
| 8 | New Mexico | 10.00 | 2,120,246 | 12.0% | 31.0% |
| 9 | Oklahoma | 10.25 | 4,028,634 | 11.0% | 28.0% |
| 10 | Texas | 11.50 | 30,188,424 | 15.0% | 33.0% |
| 11 | Tennessee | 15.00 | 7,066,383 | 10.0% | 31.0% |
| 12 | Indiana | 16.00 | 6,851,073 | 9.0% | 30.0% |
| 13 | Arizona | 17.25 | 7,378,838 | 12.0% | 33.0% |
| 14 | Florida | 17.50 | 22,416,077 | 11.0% | 33.0% |
| 15 | Ohio | 17.50 | 11,810,293 | 9.0% | 31.0% |
| 16 | South Carolina | 19.00 | 5,296,225 | 10.0% | 32.0% |
| 17 | California | 19.25 | 39,287,377 | 15.0% | 38.0% |
| 18 | Idaho | 19.75 | 1,934,262 | 9.0% | 31.0% |
| 19 | Georgia | 21.00 | 10,940,407 | 11.0% | 35.0% |
| 20 | Missouri | 22.50 | 6,191,814 | 9.0% | 32.0% |
| 21 | New York | 24.00 | 19,852,366 | 12.0% | 40.0% |
| 22 | Iowa | 25.25 | 3,210,507 | 7.0% | 31.0% |
| 23 | Michigan | 25.50 | 10,077,761 | 8.0% | 32.0% |
| 24 | Kansas | 25.50 | 2,947,197 | 9.0% | 35.0% |
| 25 | Delaware | 25.50 | 1,021,191 | 9.0% | 35.0% |
| 26 | Wyoming | 27.00 | 582,397 | 6.0% | 30.0% |
| 27 | Illinois | 27.25 | 12,694,798 | 10.0% | 38.0% |
| 28 | Rhode Island | 27.25 | 1,101,801 | 10.0% | 38.0% |
| 29 | South Dakota | 28.00 | 907,428 | 7.0% | 32.0% |
| 30 | Wisconsin | 28.50 | 5,914,872 | 8.0% | 33.0% |
| 31 | North Carolina | 29.75 | 10,730,404 | 9.0% | 36.0% |
| 32 | Pennsylvania | 30.75 | 13,018,639 | 8.0% | 35.0% |
| 33 | Alaska | 31.25 | 735,706 | 6.0% | 32.0% |
| 34 | Nebraska | 33.25 | 1,978,707 | 7.0% | 35.0% |
| 35 | Massachusetts | 33.50 | 7,044,056 | 10.0% | 46.0% |
| 36 | Oregon | 33.75 | 4,254,293 | 8.0% | 37.0% |
| 37 | North Dakota | 36.00 | 784,841 | 5.0% | 33.0% |
| 38 | Washington | 36.25 | 7,816,116 | 8.0% | 39.0% |
| 39 | Connecticut | 37.00 | 3,624,508 | 9.0% | 42.0% |
| 40 | Maine | 37.00 | 1,387,817 | 6.0% | 36.0% |
| 41 | New Jersey | 37.25 | 9,343,809 | 9.0% | 44.0% |
| 42 | Maryland | 37.25 | 6,206,011 | 9.0% | 44.0% |
| 43 | Montana | 38.25 | 1,116,875 | 5.0% | 35.0% |
| 44 | Virginia | 41.75 | 8,705,170 | 7.0% | 43.0% |
| 45 | Minnesota | 41.75 | 5,739,445 | 6.0% | 40.0% |
| 46 | Utah | 42.00 | 3,392,331 | 6.0% | 39.0% |
| 47 | Hawaii | 42.25 | 1,445,235 | 5.0% | 37.0% |
| 48 | New Hampshire | 43.25 | 1,394,868 | 6.0% | 40.0% |
| 49 | Colorado | 43.75 | 5,862,189 | 7.0% | 46.0% |
| 50 | Vermont | 46.75 | 647,106 | 5.0% | 43.0% |
Source: U.S. Census ACS 2020-2024.
Summary: The Dumbest States For 2026
If you’re measuring the states in America where there are a low number of college grads and adults without a high school diploma, this is an accurate list.
The dumbest states in the United States are Mississippi, Louisiana, West Virginia, Arkansas, Nevada, Alabama, Kentucky, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas.
The smarest states in the United States are Vermont, Colorado, New Hampshire, Hawaii, Utah, Minnesota, Virginia, Montana, Maryland, and New Jersey.