MA Leads In Education, But Falls Short Of 'Best State': U.S. News

Massachusetts is in a bit of a rut in the U.S. News & World Report's ranking of the best states in the country. The third annual rankings, released Tuesday, named the Bay State the eighth-best state in America for the second straight year, a seven-spot drop from when it led the rankings in the inaugural 2017 rankings. Massachusetts still was the overall leader in education and second in health care, according to U.S. News, but it lagged in other categories like fiscal stability and infrastructure.

Massachusetts' education ranking was No. 1 in the nation thanks in large part to being the leader in pre K-12. The state's No. 2 health care ranking was due to top-five marks in accessibility and public health.

The Bay State's worst showing was in infrastructure, where it ranked 44th. That was due to bottom-10 marks in energy and transportation infrastructure.

Here's how Massachusetts ranked across all categories:

• Health Care: 2
  • Access: 2
  • Public Health: 5
  • Quality: 13
• Education: 1
  • Higher Ed: 27
  • Pre K-12: 1
• Economy: 7
  • Business Environment: 2
  • Growth: 19
  • Employment: 9
• Opportunity: 29
  • Affordability: 46
  • Equality: 23
  • Economic Opportunity: 12
• Infrastructure: 44
  • Energy: 45
  • Broadband: 27
  • Transportation: 40
• Crime & Corrections: 4
  • Corrections: 6
  • Public Safety: 10
• Fiscal Stability: 30
  • Long-term: 17
  • Short-term: 47
• Natural Environment: 26
  • Air and Water Quality: 35
  • Pollution: 17

If you take the U.S. News rankings to heart and really want to shake things up, move up north. New Hampshire was deemed the second-best state in the country, trailing only Washington, and Vermont was fifth. Other New England states were Connecticut at 21, Rhode Island at 26, Maine at 32 and

A national survey conducted by U.S. News found that just 27 percent of respondents generally agree that their state is doing all it can to help residents prosper. The survey also found that 52 percent of respondents are generally dissatisfied about the quality of education in their state, 48 percent are dissatisfied about the quality of infrastructure and 42 percent are dissatisfied about the quality of health care.

Respondents also agreed that education, infrastructure and health care are the most underfunded by state governments.

To compile the rankings, U.S. News looked at 71 metrics under eight categories. The eight rankings were weighted based on the average of three years data from a national survey that asked respondents to prioritize each category in their state. Health care, education and economy received the top three weights in the methodology. After U.S. News calculated category scores and rankings, it compiled overall rankings by creating weighted averages of the individual category rankings. (You can read the full methodology here.)