By Ashley Marchand

College and graduate-school enrollment in the nation's 100 largest cities increased during the 2000s, and often depended upon factors like race and geographic region.

And nationally, a record 35 percent of adults held postsecondary degrees in 2008, an increase from 1990, when the rate was 26 percent.

Those are just some of the findings from the inaugural "State of Metropolitan America: On the Front Lines of Demographic Transformation," a report released on Sunday by the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based nonprofit research organization. The report examined a preview of this year's census data for demographic trends in the 100 largest metropolitan areas, including trends in higher education.

The pattern of increasing educational attainment was reflected in growing enrollments. In 2000, 34 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds were enrolled in postsecondary institutions, and that rate rose to 41 percent by 2008. Cities throughout New England had higher rates of enrollment, with more than 50 percent of the region's young adults in college in 2008. Washington, D.C., had the largest rate of bachelor's-degree recipients, with 47 percent of its adult population holding those college degrees. In Bakersfield, Calif., the figure was only 15 percent.

The percentage of college-degree holders in a city also predicted how the city has fared in the economic downturn over the last few years.

"We're seeing that during the recession and the recovery, the places that were less affected and are recovering faster are the smarter places," said Alan M. Berube, a senior fellow and research director for the Brookings Institution's Metropolitan Policy Program, which conducted the study. "The growing and economically successful places had above-average levels of educational attainment."

Many cities of the industrial Midwest—like Detroit and Cleveland—saw an increase in the rate of young adults with college degrees over the same period of time, by 10 percentage points or more. According to the report, the increase may result from the loss of manufacturing jobs that "spurred more young people in these regions to pursue higher education," to open more job opportunities.

East and West of the Mississippi

The percentage of college-degree holders also varied greatly depending on race, though all racial groups showed an increase in the rate of degree completion.

Asians were the highest-ranking group, with about 50 percent holding a bachelor's degree in 2008, up from about 44 percent in 2000.

Whites followed with about 31 percent in 2008, up from 27 percent in 2000, while about 18 percent of blacks had the degrees in 2008, up from about 14 percent in 2000. Hispanics were the lowest-ranking group, with about 13 percent holding a bachelor's degree in 2008, up from about 10 percent in 2000.

Degree attainment differed within racial groups according to geographic area.

A higher percentage of Hispanics had college degrees in areas from the Mississippi River eastward, like Baltimore, Boston, Miami, Minneapolis, New Orleans, and St. Louis—cities that for the most part have small Latino populations, except for Miami.

The areas with the lowest rates of Hispanics with college degrees are in the West, where more Hispanics hold jobs in agriculture, construction, and the "lower-level service sector."

The Midwest and South, where manufacturing jobs did not require college degrees, were regions with the lowest educational levels for blacks. The rate of degree-earning blacks was highest in many "high-tech" metro areas and in Western areas that did not have the same levels of segregation in the past as in the South and East.

College-degree attainment among blacks and Hispanics is an issue that will need to be addressed in the coming years, Mr. Berube said, especially as aging white baby boomers retire and the younger population, with more blacks and Hispanics, enters the work force.

"It's hard to see how we can recover and maintain economic growth in this country if we tolerate the sort of disparities we saw in this report," Mr. Berube said.