Health and education refuse to increase and get worse with new buildings

[dicobalt 0]

I have always had this problem playing SimCity4.  Even if I saturate an area with schools, colleges, and hospitals.  Education and health always stunt and never improve.  There is 100% employment and all demand is being met.  If i build new residential it gets even worse and the new structures stay forever solid red for health and education.  It always says the building has high school/hospital grade.  I have no mods and only use the NAM but it still happens even without it.

[Yuu Caa Sim 55]

New residents will always have low Health and low Education levels. These levels increase slowly over time with good coverage of the appropriate facilities. The initial HQ and EQ value of new residents depends on the wealth level of the sim. Higher wealth sims start at higher levels of HQ and EQ. The rate of change, however, should be the same. When a sim "dies" (when the average age of a lot resets to the lowest value), a small percentage of the previous HQ and EQ value will be lost, but if you have given good educational / health coverage, this new value for the "new" resident of a lot should be higher than the initial value. This cycle continues on indefinitely, although with enough time and dedication, you should be able to get to the maximum value.

For Health, simply being in the radius of any building will let the value increase. For Education, you will have to make sure that educational facilities in the radius of a specific lot will serve the current average age value of that lot. These service ages are somewhat self evident - elementary schools serve lots with young sims, colleges serve middle aged, etc. You can see the current average age of all lots in the data view (should be "Resident Average Age" or something similar).

The school/hospital grade pretty much only tells how effective schools and health are at affectinig that lot. The actual EQ and HQ values changes slowly over time at a rate determined by coverage.

In summary: Education and Health levels take a very long time to go up - several ingame generation and some 100 or so years. Patience and Coverage are the key here.