Bellevue Among Top in Science Degrees, Bottom in Teaching Degrees

Bellevue's high number of high tech companies -- and possibly because of its percentage of immigrants -- may have drawn the city another distinction: being among the top cities in the country of adults age 25 and older with college degrees in science and engineering.

About half of Bellevue’s residents 25 years and over with a bachelor’s degree have college degrees in science and engineering, according to the American Community Survey, a population analysis by the U.S. Census Bureau based on a sample of Bellevue residents.

That puts the city in the top 13 percent of large cities in the country for having college degrees in science and engineering, according to city associate planner Gwen Rousseau. The city is also in the top 6 percent of 550 large cities in the country for having bachelor's degrees, with 59.1 percent of adults aged 25 and older having graduated college, she said.

Knowing a city's education attainment is important, she said.

"The educational attainment level is something that is looked at by companies," Rousseau said.

Rousseau said she was also spurred to analyze Bellevue's educational attainment after the U.S. Census Bureau released an analysis that one out of five people with a science or engineering degree in the U.S. are immigrants, a larger percentage of foreign-born than in the general population.

About , according to the American Community Survey.

The Census also showed that 64 percent of immigrants with degrees in mathematics, computers and statistics were born in Asia, according to its analysis of the American Community Survey numbers.

The proliferation of high tech companies in Bellevue is believed to be one of the things that draw immigrants with degrees to the Eastside. That number, of course, includes both Asian-Americans born in the U.S. and immigrants.

However, the numbers from the American Community Survey also show that Bellevue has among lowest percentages of people with teaching degrees -- about 2,701 people, or about 5 percent of the bachelor's degrees held by Bellevue residents. Nationwide, about 14 percent of people with bachelor's degrees have degrees in education, Rousseau said.

Population of Bellevue (2010):122,363

Population of Bellevue 25 years or older: 87,118

Estimated number of college degrees (American Community Survey): 49,881

 Bachelor Degrees in Bellevue

The Foreign Born With Science and Engineering Degrees: 2010

Educational Attainment for the Population Aged 25 and Older by Nativity: 2010

(Numbers in thousands. Data based on sample. For information on confidentiality protection, sampling error, nonsampling error, and definitions, see www.census.gov/acs/www)

Nativity

Total population aged 25 and older

With bachelor’s degree or higher

Estimate

Margin of error1 (+/–)

Total

Science and engineering fields2

All other fields2

Estimate

Margin of error1 (+/–)

Estimate

Margin of error1 (+/–)

Estimate

Margin of error1 (+/–)

NUMBER

Total .

204,289

73

57,578

169

19,922

88

37,656

131

Native born .

170,663

128

48,501

159

15,762

77

32,739

125

Foreign born .

33,626

89

9,077

55

4,160

35

4,918

43

PERCENT OF NATIVITY GROUP

Total .

100.0

(X)

28.2

0.1

9.8

–

18.4

0.1

Native born .

100.0

(X)

28.4

0.1

9.2

–

19.2

0.1

Foreign born .

100.0

(X)

27.0

0.1

12.4

0.1

14.6

0.1

PERCENT OF FIELD

Total .

100.0

(X)

100.0

(X)

100.0

(X)

100.0

(X)

Native born .

83.5

–

84.2

0.1

79.1

0.2

86.9

0.1

Foreign born .

16.5

–

15.8

0.1

20.9

0.2

13.1

0.1

-- Information from the U.S. Census Bureau