This post started off simply enough: I found some cool data on changes in educational attainment over time. I was going to take a look at how far we'd come as a nation in the last 40 years (even though I had already published this ), and show where the biggest gains were. It wasn't very compelling, at least at first. Then, I decided to get ambitious (my wife was in her evening class, so I had the night free), and wondered if there were any interesting connections between changes in educational attainment and voting patterns in 2016. I found a data set with election results by county, (a handful of counties are missing) and merged it in. And thus, this. Before I start, there are a few points to make about the data. First, the definitions changed slightly over time. For instance, in 1970, the field is labeled "College degree," while in 2010, it's labeled "Four or more years of college." Not the same thing, but we'll have to go with it for n...