The data also shows that as the city's college-educated population increased, so did the share who graduated with a degree in one of the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields. In fact, STEM grads now make up the majority of college graduates living in Seattle.
The Census Bureau's "science and engineering" category for major fields of study for bachelor's degrees covers most of the STEM fields. The bureau also has a "science and engineering related fields" category that includes nursing, architecture, public health and various other major fields of study.
The number of city residents 25 and older with a bachelor's degree in the science and engineering category nearly doubled from 106,000 in 2010 to 207,000 in 2023, a 95 percent increase. Last year, these grads made up around 52 percent of college grads living in Seattle, up from 43 percent in 2010.
Seattle college grads with degrees in other majors also grew in number from 2010 to 2023 but not nearly as much. City residents with an undergraduate degree in business had the largest increase after those with STEM and STEM-related fields, at 40.5 percent, but that rate of growth is still less than half the rate for STEM grads.
This trend in the growth of STEM graduates is, of course, at least partly related to the prominence of tech in Seattle's economy. Tech workers typically have a bachelor's degree in computer science, IT, computer engineering, mathematics or some other STEM field.
Among the 50 U.S. cities with the largest number of college graduates, Seattle is one of only four that had a STEM-grad majority.
San Jose, Silicon Valley's largest city, had the highest percentage, at 57 percent. Seattle tied for second with Washington, D.C. which has become a tech hub in its own right. The neighboring city of Arlington, Va., also had a STEM majority among its college grads, at just under 52 percent. Amazon has a large presence in Arlington, which is the site of its second headquarters, HQ2.
San Francisco ranked fifth and was just shy of 50 percent.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, in a number of large cities, less than one-third of the college grads had majored in a STEM field. These cities are all located in the Sunbelt and the Midwest.
Memphis had the lowest share of STEM majors among its college-grad population, at about 30 percent.
In nearly all large cities — even Memphis — the number of residents who graduated with a STEM degree was still greater than the number with a degree in any of the other categories: business, education or arts/humanities.
There was one exception: Los Angeles had the highest percentage of college grads who majored in an arts/humanities field, at 36 percent. That was slightly higher than the percentage with a STEM degree, at just under 36 percent. Los Angeles, of course, is unusual in that media and entertainment are a larger part of the economy there than in other big cities.
Among the 50 cities, Miami had the highest percentage of college graduates with a degree in business, at 32 percent, and Mesa, Ariz., was No. 1 for the share with a degree in education, at 15 percent of college graduates.
©2024 The Seattle Times. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
