Posted by Keturah Hetrick on Feb. 16, 2021
The freshman class has some of the worst-educated offices on the Hill, according to LegiStorm data.
Freshman Reps. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), Michelle Fischbach (R-Minn.) and Andrew Garbarino (R-N.Y.) each have one of the 10 least-educated staffs in Congress.
Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.), whose staff is heavy on master's degrees, is the only freshman to crack the top 10 and is second only to Rep. Ted Deutch (D-Fla.). In the 116th Congress, half of the top 10 list belonged to the freshman class.
On average, Democratic lawmakers surround themselves with staff with more formal education, while Republicans tend to instead emphasize military service and other career experiences and training.
LegiStorm gives a score to each office based on educational level attained and quality of the school attended. For educational level, PhDs count more than master's degrees, which in turn count more than bachelor's degrees, for example. For school quality, LegiStorm used the U.S. News and World Report rankings, with various bonus points going to students who attended a top 100, top 50 or top 10 school.
LegiStorm's education-analysis tool compares only publicly available formal education records and may be skewed by a number of factors, including the proportion of entry-level versus senior-level staff, geographic distribution of high-ranked schools, and whether staffers choose to make their up-to-date education information publicly available.
Some people and organizations who "caught our eye" last week:
