These days, it seems, you need a college degree just to live in or around New York City.
Almost 5 million people over the age of 25 in the New York metropolitan area — more than a third of the region’s population — had at least a bachelor’s degree in 2005, according to the latest data from the Census Bureau. In Manhattan, nearly three out of five residents were college graduates and one out of four had advanced degrees, forming one of the highest concentrations of highly educated people in any American city.
The degree-holders are rapidly displacing the dropouts, a trend that may help reduce the demand for social services and drive down crime rates. But the trend also worries some sociologists who say it is evidence that lower-income residents are being pushed out.
Between 2000 and 2005, the number of people in the metropolitan area over 25 who had not finished high school declined by 520,000, a drop of almost 20 percent. During the same period, the number of college graduates in the region rose by almost 700,000.
“These numbers are startling,” said Andrew A. Beveridge, a demographer at Queens College of the City University of New York. “It means the labor force in New York is becoming much more educated.”
Mr. Beveridge said the statistics also portended that the next set of census numbers, which are due in two weeks, will reveal a widening gap between rich and poor in the city. “If a big chunk of the labor force has become more educated, we can expect even more income inequality,” he said.
Pedro A. Noguera, a sociologist at New York University and the director of the Metropolitan Center for Urban Education, said many New Yorkers would see the growing ranks of college graduates among them as a positive development that could ease the burdens on city services and lead to a lower crime rate.
“But unfortunately, it’s more likely to mean that it’s increasingly difficult for poor people without college degrees,” he said. “Affordable housing is not as available. The people who make the city work, who do the hard work in the city — the waiters and janitors — are not going to be able to live in the city.”
Mr. Noguera said the trend was not confined to New York. “Certain cities have become extremely attractive to affluent people,” he said, citing San Francisco and Seattle as others.
But according to the latest data, which comes from the 2005 American Community Survey, college graduates are flocking to New York City at a faster pace.
Many of the city’s new arrivals, including immigrants, have college educations, Mr. Beveridge said. And many of the residents who have died or retired and moved away had never finished high school, he said.
The rise in the ranks of the college-educated in the city is a blend of college graduates moving in to take high-paying jobs and residents obtaining degrees, said Joseph Salvo, director of the population division of the Department of City Planning. He noted that enrollment at the City University of New York had increased to 218,000 students in 2004, up about 12 percent from 2000.
From 2000 to 2005, the number of New York City residents with at least a bachelor’s degree increased by about 285,000, a gain equal to the total number of college-educated people in San Francisco. During that period, the share of New Yorkers with a college degree rose to 32.2 percent from 26 percent, ranking New York fourth among the biggest American cities.
All parts of New York City became more educated, but Manhattan and Brooklyn stood out. In Manhattan, more than 57 percent of all residents had at least a bachelor’s degree, up from 50 percent in 2000.
That concentration ranked Manhattan first among counties with more than 1 million residents and seventh among all counties.
Brooklyn is becoming educated even faster. Since 2000, the number of college graduates there has risen by about 80,000, or 24 percent, while residents without a high-school diploma have declined by about 110,000, a 24 percent decline.
Marty Markowitz, the Brooklyn borough president, said that Brooklyn was seeing immigrants and young professionals flood in and that a home there “is becoming less attainable for people that don’t have their college degree or more.”
He cited the continuing loss of manufacturing jobs and the shortage of affordable housing in the borough as factors fueling the change.
“We need those jobs too,” he said. “There will always be those who for whatever reason cannot attain high school or college education. There has to be room for them, too.”
But Mr. Markowitz also attributed the changes in Brooklyn to a wave of Chinese immigrants for whom “education is the center of their lives” and “an influx of residents from Manhattan and from across the country where Brooklyn is considered chic.”
New arrivals with college degrees say the city has become a more attractive place to start careers.
Jennifer Becker, 26, lived in Virginia after graduating from the University of Virginia, but moved to Manhattan last year when her husband, Christian, joined a law firm in the city.
“Part of it was just to be in the big city,” said Ms. Becker, the executive director of the university’s alumni club in New York. “I think people tend to come here for a few years and then move somewhere else.”
From the University of Virginia, for example, about 120 graduates head to New York to live each spring, up from about 75 just five years ago, said Carol Wood, assistant vice president for university relations. “We’re definitely seeing a lot of young grads come up here for jobs right after school,” Ms. Becker said.