Study Reveals The Most Common Educational Traits of the 117th US Senate

May 04 17:12 2021
Study Reveals The Most Common Educational Traits of the 117th US Senate
This quarter, leading south Florida tutoring company, SoFlo Tutoring has rolled up it’s sleeves to dig into public records and data to find out what commonalities the 117th US Senate had with regards to their own educational background.

As Spring ushers in, with it comes a big day for high school seniors across the United States. Known as ‘National Decision Day’, May 1st represents a time-honored cut-off for making one of the biggest decisions in a person’s life: where they will choose to attend college.

With applications sent and acceptance letters in hand, high school seniors and their families have waited in eager anticipation for this day. Although generally a time of celebration, this day can also bring about feelings of anxiety and uncertainty.

With recent headlines touting a mounting student debt balance of more than $1.6 trillion owed, around one out of every seven people in the USA have student loan debt.

This added financial pressure makes choosing the right college, university and career path a difficult one for many students and their families.

This quarter, leading south Florida tutoring company, SoFlo Tutoring has rolled up it’s sleeves to dig into public records and data to find out what commonalities the 117th US Senate had with regards to their own educational background.

As a potential indicator of success and a fruitful career path that is both personally and financially rewarding, the results of this study may empower and inspire students to carve their own educational path based on the success of those that came before them.

The Educational Diversity of America’s Leaders

SoFlo’s research uncovered a broad range of interesting statistics and facts surrounding the education of the US Senate. The full scope of findings can be found in a recent publication at SoFlo Tutoring, including visual representations of educational diversity and distribution across a map of the United States.

A Brief Summary of Findings

Generational Distribution in the Senate: Baby Boomers by far make up the majority of the senate at 68%, followed by Gen X at 20%, the Silent Generation at 10% and lastly, Millennials at just 2%.

Generational Distribution in the House: The distribution in the House was found to echo that of the senate with Baby Boomers comprising 54%, Gen X 32%, the Silent Generation just 9% and Millennials at 6% of members.

Political Affiliation By Age: Although the distribution of republicans to democrats across most generations was nearly equal (149:153 for Boomers, and 13:17 for Millennials), Gen X and the Silent Generation had much wider gaps, with Gen X skewing heavily towards Republican at 149:81, and with Millennials skewing more towards Democrat at a ratio of 17:13.

Popularity Measured by Social Media Following: Among all generations, Millennial members of the House and Senate by far achieved the largest followings, followed (interestingly) by the Silent Generation, Gen X and lastly, Boomers.

Congress Members Holding a PhD: This metric was defined as any member of Congress holding a P.h.d. Just 3.9% (21 members) of Congress met this criteria, with 5 being Republican and 16 Democrat.

STEM Degree Holders in Congress: Currently, 44 Congressional members hold a degree in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math)

Most Common Alma Mater of Congressional Members: Here we see Harvard and Stanford head to head with 16 and 15 graduates respectively. This is followed by Georgetown University (12), the University of California (7), and Princeton (7).

Most Common Undergraduate Degrees Among Senate Members:

  • Political Science: 15%
  • Law: 10%
  • Business Administration: 7%
  • History: 4%
  • Economics: 4%


Most active U.S. Senators on Twitter 2020, by number of tweets:

  • Ted Cruz (R-TX): 5,282
  •  Ed Markey (D-MA): 4,195
  •  Dick Durbin (D-IL): 3,644


About SoFlo SAT Tutoring

With multiple locations throughout the United States, SoFlo SAT Tutoring has proudly served students seeking college counseling and SAT/ACT tutoring. Specializing in personalized strategies designed to help students excel, SoFlo leverages each student’s strengths to build upon their weaknesses.

Focused on excellence, experience and education, SoFlo SAT Tutoring has a demonstrated and lengthy track record of student success stories and customer satisfaction. 

Media Contact
Company Name: SoFlo SAT Tutoring
Contact Person: Gabriel Murgu
Email: Send Email
Phone: 954-654-9777
State: Florida
Country: United States
Website: www.soflotutors.com/

view more articles

About Article Author