Former Vanity Fair and New Yorker editor Tina Brown's Daily Beast site ranks America's Smartest Cities--From First to Worst and Providence is #22:

#22, PROVIDENCE
Metro Area Population: 1,596,611
Daily Beast IQ Score: 110

Providence is home to half of Rhode Island's institutions of higher education, including Brown, and postsecondary students comprise one-quarter of the city's population. So it's no wonder that the Renaissance City's top 5 percent score in postsecondary institutions places it in the top half of our list, despite otherwise unexceptional numbers.

25% of the intelligence ranking comes from nonfiction book sales, where we seem to be unexceptional. The Web has certainly collapsed my cookbook buying.

Oddly,

The education half encompassed how many residents had bachelor's degrees (35 percent weighting) and graduate degrees (15 percent). No credit was given for "some college," or "some grad school"--we rewarded those who finished the race.

This seems to leave out the students, "one-quarter of the city's population."

But the actual race is life, to most of us: Money woes and financial burdens, job offers, boredom, a better idea, parenthood, illness or wanderlust all can lead to dropping out before the next degree. Goals change. This is a silly bias, and a myopically narrow gauge of intelligence.

The full list: