85% of residents hold a college degree. The borough average is 36%. And the education gap is widening.
New Census figures show that the education numbers are not even close.
In 2024, 85% of adults in Hunters Point South and Long Island City held a bachelor’s degree or higher. Queens County as a whole: 36%. New York City: 42%. The neighborhood sits more than 40 points above its borough and more than 40 points above the city: a gap that has grown every year since 2012.
Among Queens census tracts with a substantial residential population, the Court Square area ranks first. The northern section of Court Square came in at 94.9% college-educated among adults 25 and older, second in all of Queens.
For practical purposes, LIC is the most educated residential neighborhood in the borough.
HPS By the numbers
College degree or higher: the neighborhood vs. Queens and NYC
Share of adults 25+ with a bachelor’s degree or higher. The gap with Queens has grown every year.
Source: ACS 5-Year Estimates, B15003 (educational attainment, population 25+). Waterfront = Tracts 1.01–1.02; Core Hunters Point = Tracts 7.01–7.02; Court Square = Tracts 19.01–19.03. Figures for 2012–2019 use 2010 census tract boundaries (tracts 1, 7, 19 undivided); 2020–2024 use 2020 sub-tract boundaries aggregated to tract family. Queens and NYC from borough-level ACS estimates.
The trend is accelerating, not stabilizing.
In 2012, the neighborhood’s college+ share ranged from 58% in Core Hunters Point to 76% on the waterfront. By 2024 those figures had risen to 73% and 83% respectively. Court Square moved most dramatically: from 66% in 2012 to 94% in 2024 — a 28-point climb over 12 years, tracking almost exactly with the buildout of the new towers.
Over the same period, Queens County rose from 30% to 36%. The neighborhood was always highly credentialed, and continues to increase the share of education.
Graduate degrees tell an even sharper story.
45%: that’s how many Court Square adults hold a graduate or professional degree. The Queens figure is 14%. NYC: 18%. Core Hunters Point, the most economically diverse zone, sits at 38% graduate-educated, still more than double the borough.
One in three adults in this neighborhood has a master’s degree, a law degree, an MBA, or a doctorate. That’s not a rounding error. It’s the defining characteristic of who moved in as the neighborhood was built out over the last 30-plus years.
Graduate degrees: the neighborhood vs. Queens and NYC
Share of adults 25+ with a master’s, professional, or doctoral degree. Nearly half of Court Square adults hold a graduate degree.
Source: ACS 5-Year Estimates, B15003 (educational attainment, population 25+). Graduate degree = master’s + professional school + doctorate. Waterfront = Tracts 1.01–1.02; Core Hunters Point = Tracts 7.01–7.02; Court Square = Tracts 19.01–19.03. Figures for 2012–2019 use 2010 census tract boundaries (tracts 1, 7, 19 undivided); 2020–2024 use 2020 sub-tract boundaries aggregated to tract family. Queens and NYC from borough-level ACS estimates.
The variation across the neighborhood is real.
Core Hunters Point, the older residential blocks between 21st Street and the waterfront, consistently runs 10 to 15 points below the other two zones. In 2024: 73% college+, 38% graduate+. Those are still exceptional numbers by any borough standard, but within the neighborhood they represent the lower end. The waterfront area sits in the middle with 83% college+ and Court Square leads both areas.
The pattern has been consistent since 2012 and has not converged. Core Hunters Point is not catching up to Court Square: if anything the gap between them has widened slightly as Court Square’s newer towers filled with a more credentialed population.
The building age data confirms what the population numbers imply. Ninety-two percent of Court Square’s housing units were built after 2010. On the waterfront, 56% were built after 2010 and another 29% date to the Queens West construction wave of the 2000s — leaving less than 5% of units pre-1990. Core Hunters Point is the exception: nearly half its housing stock predates 1990, and a significant share predates World War II. This is not a neighborhood that displaced an existing community to make room for new residents. In two of its three zones, the housing simply did not exist before the development boom began.
What the data shows.
This is a neighborhood of people who completed significant formal education, most of them before they arrived here. The Census doesn’t tell us where they came from, what they do, or how long they plan to stay. Other data in this series (tenure, move-in dates, household size) fill in some of those gaps.
But the trend is durable: the residents of this neighborhood are, by educational credential, an outlier within Queens, within the city, and by most national comparisons. That’s been true since at least 2012, it’s more true today, and the trend lines show no sign of reversing.
Data: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates, 2012–2024. Educational attainment (B15003), population 25 and older. Waterfront = Tracts 1.01–1.02; Core Hunters Point = Tracts 7.01–7.02; Court Square = Tracts 19.01–19.03. Queens County and NYC figures aggregated from borough-level ACS estimates. Tract-level figures for 2012–2019 use 2010 census tract boundaries; 2020–2024 use 2020 sub-tract boundaries aggregated to tract family. Queens ranking excludes tracts with fewer than 500 adults due to high margins of error.
Randy Plemel
Publisher
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The founder and publisher of the Hunters Point Ledger, a newsletter covering Hunters Point South and Long Island City. He serves on Queens Community Board 2, and all views are his own.
