The ranking was put together by personal finance website WalletHub.
The company compared the 150 largest metropolitan statistical areas across 11 key metrics -- including share of adults with a graduate degree, number of summer learning opportunities, racial and gender gap, and quality of public school system.
Durham and Chapel Hill were looped together for the analysis.
The cities especially ranked high in the areas of highest average university quality and highest percentage of graduate or professional degree holders.
Ann Arbor, Michigan came in first place, followed by San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, California and Washington-Arlington-Alexandria. Meanwhile, Visalia-Porterville, California, came in last.
Raleigh was ranked no. 13.