Census: Massachusetts adults are among the best-educated

By Amanda Cedrone, Globe Correspondent

Yes, it’s true. Massachusetts residents are wicked smart.

The Bay State, with its plethora of colleges, is the most highly educated state in the United States, according to the US Census Bureau.

In 2010, 39 percent of Massachusetts residents 25 and older had at least a bachelor’s degree, according to Census data released from 2010. The Commonwealth had the highest percentage in the United States, aside from the District of Columbia, which outranked it with a score of 50.1 percent.

The data from the American Community Survey, which were released today by the Census, also said that Massachusetts, with its much-discussed health care reform law, had one of the highest rates of employer-based health insurance coverage, with coverage for 86.4 percent of full-time workers, and 62.6 percent.

The Commonwealth also had one of the highest percentages of never-married women in the country. Massachusetts was one of seven states where the percentage of women age 15 or older who have never married is over 30 percent. The other states are New York, California, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, and Rhode Island.