These States are Using Quarantine Time for Education

There’s no question that life has looked a little bit different for many of us recently. Restaurants, businesses, offices, and schools are closed temporarily, and many states have issued stay-at-home orders to help slow the spread of COVID-19. With all these measures in place, many Americans have found themselves with extra time on their hands, but how are they spending it?

There are in infinite number of things to do with free time, but since we’re in the business of helping students with their studies, we decided to take a look at which Americans are using their time in isolation to invest in their education. After crunching the numbers and breaking it out by state, here’s a quick look at the top 10:

Vermont
District of Columbia
Massachusetts
Maine
New York
Maryland
Connecticut
Rhode Island
Wyoming
New Jersey

Methodology

To determine which states are using their free time for education, we leveraged data from Google Trends to see search terms that have spiked in popularity since mid-March. For our research we isolated four search terms:

“free classes”
“free online classes”
“free courses”
“free online courses”

These variations had more search volume than any other queries and provided a good base to determine which states were using their free time to seek out supplemental education. States were ranked 0-100 by Google Trends based on the relative popularity of the search term. For example, the term “free courses” received a score of 88 in Maryland and 44 in Kentucky, meaning that it is searched twice as much in Maryland.

With scores recorded for all four terms, we averaged them to determine which states have been searching most frequently for educational opportunities since stay-at-home measures were implemented in mid-March. Once all the scores were finalized, Vermont came out on top.

Check out the table below to see where your state ranked. Feeling inspired to do some learning yourself? We’ve got tons of great textbooks and resources waiting to be discovered.

Summary Stats

Rank	State	free classes	free online classes	free courses	free online courses
1	Vermont	86	99	100	100
2	District of Columbia	100	100	93	63
3	Massachusetts	86	74	84	73
4	Maine	95	66	78	66
5	New York	80	66	82	69
6	Maryland	71	68	88	64
7	Connecticut	74	60	72	57
8	Rhode Island	58	46	85	71
9	Wyoming	78	39	69	70
10	New Jersey	67	57	76	55
11	Delaware	81	51	49	70
12	West Virginia	85	73	46	46
13	Virginia	70	55	68	52
14	Hawaii	87	62	40	48
15	Pennsylvania	57	50	73	53
16	Oregon	63	52	62	55
17	New Hampshire	60	51	63	53
18	Florida	56	47	69	54
19	California	66	59	54	46
20	Colorado	70	53	47	41
21	Washington	60	44	59	48
22	Minnesota	64	52	54	37
23	Arkansas	58	37	56	49
24	Illinois	58	55	50	34
25	Georgia	51	41	58	41
26	Tennessee	62	54	42	33
27	Arizona	55	46	45	42
28	Nevada	46	49	49	42
29	Indiana	56	43	46	40
30	South Carolina	53	31	55	41
31	Alaska	57	43	45	33
32	Montana	68	68	16	26
33	New Mexico	55	53	37	31
34	Missouri	59	50	40	26
35	North Carolina	50	38	49	38
36	Michigan	49	45	42	36
37	Texas	47	38	51	36
38	Ohio	47	40	43	34
39	Wisconsin	52	47	32	29
40	Idaho	42	20	56	39
41	Louisiana	37	36	49	35
42	Kentucky	49	41	44	22
43	Iowa	52	39	41	23
44	Oklahoma	46	31	44	33
45	Kansas	37	36	48	32
46	Mississippi	38	57	30	21
47	Alabama	50	30	34	25
48	Utah	42	28	35	32
49	Nebraska	45	26	34	25
50	South Dakota	17	34	25	40
51	North Dakota	12	18	37	0

Sources

Google Trends. “Explore What the World is Searching.” trends.google.com/trends/. 21 April 2020.

TextbookRush Blog

These States are Using Quarantine Time for Education

Methodology

Summary Stats

Sources

About the author

Methodology

Summary Stats

Sources

About the author

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