Posted by: Richie Bernardo

Cost is often a major consideration when evaluating college prospects. And with tuition rates continuing to rise every year — not to mention all the other expenses related to attendance — many would-be students are easily priced out of a university education.

Community colleges offer a perfect solution — and a better alternative to forgoing higher education altogether. During the 2016 to 2017 academic year, tuition and fees for full-time, in-state enrollment at a public two-year college averaged $1,760 per semester versus $4,825 at a public four-year institution and $16,740 at a four-year private school. Based on those rates, students who earn their general-education credits at a community college before transferring to an in-state public four-year university would save $12,260 over two years on tuition and fees alone.

Besides their reputation as an affordable, and in some cases free, option for earning a degree or serving as a bridge to university, community colleges are known for a number of attractive qualities. They often provide more flexible schedules, smaller class sizes and comparatively rigorous coursework, including bachelor’s degree programs in nearly half of all U.S. states — again, at a fraction of the university price tag. Such advantages appeal to first-time college entrants but especially to nontraditional students who juggle their studies with other commitments, such as family and work. Many university students today are even transferring to community colleges for the same reasons, a growing trend that reverses the traditional path of “upgrading” from a two-year to a four-year institution.

Individual community colleges, however, vary in performance and affordability. To determine where students can receive the best education at the lowest price, WalletHub’s analysts compared more than 700 community colleges across 14 key indicators of cost and quality. Our data set ranges from the cost of in-state tuition and fees to student-faculty ratio to graduation rate. Read on for our findings, expert insight from a panel of researchers and a full description of our methodology. In addition to this ranking, we also conducted a state-level analysis of the Best & Worst Community College Systems.

1. Main Findings
2. Ask the Experts
3. Methodology

Main Findings Embed on your website<iframe src="//d2e70e9yced57e.cloudfront.net/wallethub/embed/15076/geochart-community-colleges.html" width="556" height="347" frameBorder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe> <div style="width:556px;font-size:12px;color:#888;">Source: <a href="http://ift.tt/2fY9M7n;

 

Overall Rank	Community College	Total Score	‘Cost & Financing’ Rank	‘Education Outcomes’ Rank	‘Career Outcomes’ Rank
820	Austin Community College District (TX)	31.67	789	773	701
821	Hudson County Community College (NJ)	27.10	812	821	583

Ask the Experts

With college costs rising and more Americans pursuing degrees, community-college trends are shifting to fill the demand that traditional four-year institutions are failing to meet. And the prospect of free community college for middle-class families grows ever more appealing. For advice on improving the U.S. community-college system, we asked a panel of experts to weigh in with their thoughts on the following key questions:

1. Do you think that making community college tuition-free will increase enrollment and graduation rates?
2. What can policymakers do to improve the quality of education and training at community colleges and the career prospects of graduates?
3. Should community colleges focus more on preparing graduates for the workforce through career and technical education or on preparing graduates to move to a four-year college?
4. In evaluating the best and worst community college systems, what are the top five indicators?

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• Alexander W. Wiseman Associate Professor and Director of the Comparative and International Education Program at Lehigh University, College of Education
• Robert Cherry Professor of Economics at Brooklyn College
• Richard Elmore Gregory R. Anrig Professor of Educational Leadership at the Harvard Graduate School of Education
• Rebecca Clothey Assistant Professor in the School of Education at Drexel University
• Eunyoung Kim Associate Professor in the Department of Education Leadership, Management & Policy at Seton Hall University, College of Education & Human Services
• Eboni M. Zamani-Gallaher Professor of Higher Education/Community College Leadership in the Department of Education Policy, Organization, and Leadership at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• Michelle Van Noy Assistant Research Professor and Associate Director of the Education and Employment Research Center at the School of Management and Labor Relations at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey

Alexander W. Wiseman Associate Professor and Director of the Comparative and International Education Program at Lehigh University, College of Education What can policymakers do to improve the quality of education and training at community colleges and the career prospects of graduates? Policymakers can ensure that policy and resource support for community college student transition to the labor market is embedded in the mission and practice of community colleges. There is a need for capacity building regarding both knowledge (academic or otherwise) and skills (practical and informed). Combining the knowledge and skills components is the unique opportunity that community colleges worldwide have, so linking them directly is always recommended. This could happen in many ways, but one sure way is the make specific partnerships between community colleges and employers, which involve students working as part of their college credit in supervised internships at partner employers. There should then be some sort of commitment from the employers to offer employment to those community college students who participate 'successfully' in the internship programs. This would have to be negotiated between the community colleges and the employers, but this kind of linking between knowledge and skills is what will improve the career prospects of graduates. Should community colleges focus more on preparing graduates for the workforce--through career and technical education--or on preparing graduates to move to a 4-year college? They should prepare them for both, and neither should exclude the other. As I said above, it is the unique opportunity to link high quality knowledge with high quality skills that makes the mission of community colleges special. Robert Cherry Professor of Economics at Brooklyn College Do you think Obama’s proposal to make community college tuition free will increase enrollment and graduation rates? As I commented in an article on the propose elimination of tuition in the CUNY system, I think it will more likely reduce the graduation rate of poorer at-risk students who are already in the system for free, thanks to TAP and Pell grants. The reason is that support services which are often crucial for at-risk students will be stretched thin. What can policymakers do to improve the quality of education and training at community colleges and the career prospects of graduates? As I have repeatedly stressed, there must be more use of occupational tracks rather than an almost religious focus on the transfer function. Indeed, for many at risk students, even completing a two year program at the community colleges is unrealistic as evidenced by graduation rates below 20 percent at a number of the CUNY community colleges. Many of these students would have been better served if they had first enrolled in shorter and more focused certificate programs. Below are some of my relevant publications: The CUNY Tuition Myth (July 29) Diplomas and Jobs Washington Wants to Kill, Wall Street Journal (May 9) Certificate Programs Offer Opportunity for At-Risk Youth, Gotham Gazette (June 24) Richard Elmore Gregory R. Anrig Professor of Educational Leadership at the Harvard Graduate School of Education The general tone of your questions is very status-quo oriented and very much tuned to the current political debate, which I regard as very disconnected from the realities of the sector and the emerging future of learning in society at large. First, I would not expect "free" community college to have much impact on the prospects of young adults in the absence of substantial improvements in other much more challenging domains. It's obvious to say, but there is no such thing as "free" learning in an institutionalized setting -- the costs have to accrue to someone, and we vastly oversimplify the problems by using the term, even the more accurate term "tuition free." There are opportunity costs to the individual learner and direct costs associated with young adult participation in any form of learning. The direct costs have to be borne by some agency or jurisdiction, if not by the individual, and we are in a period where virtually all public jurisdictions are busily disinvesting in virtually all forms of direct support for institutions of higher and advanced learning. So we are stepping into a perilous landscape here, and there is little reason to trust governmental jurisdictions to play a strong and consistent role in any scheme to broaden access to advanced learning. I haven't even raised the question of whether higher education, in general, is a sustainable business model for the future beyond the elite research universities. Second, focusing on the access issue brackets the most difficult problems of the education/training sector. The U.S. has a tendency to focus on "easy" policy solutions to huge and complex human capital issues, while ignoring the much deeper and more persistent problems of knowledge, capacity, and organization. You can't build a broader-based system of post-secondary education/training without addressing the issue of who is going to staff and run the organizations that are supposed to serve the increased clientele, especially in a market where anyone with the skill and knowledge to teach in a high-end program could make much more money actually doing the work rather than teaching someone else to do it. There are solutions to these problems, but American policy makers have shown neither the intellect nor the patience to develop broad-based institutional structures that require entire generations to mature into effective organizations. The disaster of K-12 education reform, since 1983, shows what happens when policy makers and policy elites jump from one bright shiny object to the next instead of focusing on deeper systemic issues. We wasted more than 30 years of time and money on education "reform" without ever addressing the basic issues of teacher quality and the train wreck of governance in the K-12 sector. I doubt that we would do much better in the post-secondary sector. Third, as is clear from what I have said, I am skeptical that there is much of a role for policy-driven reform around building a human resource base for future productivity, with the possible exception of targeted individual subsidies (not institutional subsidies) and tax policy. There is a healthy and vibrant learning sector developing in the real world around digital culture that has many advantages, and many fewer of the obvious disadvantages, of the old brick-and-mortar hyper-institutionalized education sector. Like it or not, there will be a steady divergence between the new "learning sector" and the old "education sector" over time, simply because of the way the rest of society is working. The institutionalized education sector, which delivers benefits to the policy elites, will increasingly look more like the Post Office -- a privileged relic -- compared to an efficient and flexible demand-responsive system -- more like Amazon and Federal Express. There are huge equity and social justice issues associated with the transition that are more amenable to individual subsidies and tax benefits than to conventional institutional aid, where the institutions consume a large proportion of the resources in the form of overhead. We will also be better off politically if the public investments are more transparent fiscally than dropping money down the black hole of institutions, especially since our experience with financial aid in the higher ed sector has been largely abetting state disinvestment and transfer of financial burdens to students and families. Community colleges, as a sub-sector, have been much more flexible and entrepreneurial that other institutions in the education sector, which suggests that they might be more responsive to a more demand-driven system. But they will not dominate the future of learning as a source of human capital. In my scenario, the 4-college transfer option will possibly persist, but will become much less important as alternative learning sources become more available and the weakness of the 4-year model becomes clearer. Rebecca Clothey Assistant Professor in the School of Education at Drexel University Do you think Obama’s proposal to make community college tuition free will increase enrollment and graduation rates? Obama’s proposal may increase enrollment, but it will not increase graduation rates. Non-traditional students who would be likely to be attracted by the free tuition may need additional support in order to persist in college through graduation. Unless infrastructure is built around student support services, attrition could be high. What can policymakers do to improve the quality of education and training at community colleges and the career prospects of graduates? Community college employees should have training in working with non-traditional students, and investments need to be made in student support services to keep first generation college students in college. Should community colleges focus more on preparing graduates for the workforce--through career and technical education--or on preparing graduates to move to a 4-year college? I think community colleges can do both — it shouldn’t be an either/or. Different students will have different goals. Eunyoung Kim Associate Professor in the Department of Education Leadership, Management & Policy at Seton Hall University, College of Education & Human Services Do you think Obama’s proposal to make community college tuition free will increase enrollment and graduation rates? Obama’s push for free education for attending community colleges is not entirely new. Several states have implemented free tuition community college programs in recent years. Historically, tuition at CUNY (even at four-year colleges) was free until the mid-1970s. Obama’s free community college initiative is based on the idea that postsecondary education is a social investment and that members of the US workforce need at least a two-year education beyond high school to be competitive and competent in the knowledge-society. As for whether tuition free programs will increase enrollment rates: they will, initially. Low income, first generation, underserved minority students who tend to be price-sensitive can benefit from Obama’s proposal by gaining access to community colleges. And, as with any product, if the price is reduced, people will consume more of it. However, if a quality education isn’t part of the bargain, it won’t work. Therefore, linking enrollment and completion matters!! It’s even more important for Obama to articulate how he will finance his plan. Since the state has to absorb 1/3 of tuition, the financial burden for free community college would be shifted to taxpayers. It is doubtful that every state is capable of adequately sharing the cost of free-tuition community college programs. As for whether or not Obama’s tuition free community college plan will increase graduation rates, this remains questionable. According to the proposal, his plan could benefit as many as 9 million community college students–though it will take some time to see the true benefits. Since Obama’s initiative not only includes associate degree completion, but certificate completion and 4-year transfers as well, the plan has the potential to increase graduation rates from multiple aspects, not just 4-year graduation rates–particularly if a community college has a systematic assessment to track students’ progress and success, and checks and balances in place for those who have access to community college through free-tuition programs. Should community colleges focus more on preparing graduates for the workforce--through career and technical education--or on preparing graduates to move to a 4-year college? Community colleges serve the diverse needs of equally diverse student populations and respond to the demands of their local communities. A community college’s efforts and investments toward preparing students for the workforce or to transfer to a 4-year college largely depend upon the school’s specific priorities and its primary mission. Many community colleges aim to academically prepare students and feed them into 4-year institutions. Others help students to improve marketability and obtain the skills and competences necessary for success in the workplace. An individual community college’s focus and priorities must be determined collectively by its multiple constituents, including students and families, community and institutional leaders, faculty, and employers. In evaluating the best and worst community college systems, what are the top 5 indicators? Community colleges have multiple missions to accomplish, which makes sweeping evaluations of institutional performance difficult. Four-year graduation rates or retention rates are often used as the measure of a community college’s success. However, many students do not come to community college with the goal of graduating or attaining an associate degree. It is true that a significant number attends community college with the intent to transfer to four-year institutions. Others take remedial courses, which don’t count towards their overall credits, while still others take just a few courses to retool their skills and enhance their employability. Some adults take continuing education courses for personal enrichment, pleasure or professional development. Developing a holistic system of assessment on success across community colleges is a challenging task, to say the least. Graduation rates can be one of many indicators of a community college's success, but they are not the only one. They should be used as a measure with caution. If a student successfully transfers from a community college to a four-year college, this should be taken into account as an indicator of success for the school, not as an indicator of losing students. Moreover, the open door policy of community college provides an excellent means to increase access to students who are otherwise unable to attend postsecondary education. Nevertheless, this policy presents distinctive challenges to community colleges, as students come in with diverse backgrounds and varying levels of academic skills. Therefore, what is important to assess community colleges’ success is to link success to access: to not only measure where students start, but also where they end up. Equally important is what students learn and gain during the process. Before evaluating the performance of community colleges, it is critically important to identify the distinctive missions and characteristics of individual community colleges and how they measure up to missions and characteristics at the institutional level. Then we can begin to define success rates of community colleges in terms of how students are doing in their enrolled programs. Eboni M. Zamani-Gallaher Professor of Higher Education/Community College Leadership in the Department of Education Policy, Organization, and Leadership at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Do you think Obama’s proposal to make community college tuition free will increase enrollment and graduation rates? The Obama administration has made the community colleges a centerpiece of their education reform efforts to increasing college completion. President Obama’s desire to raise the number of individuals with postsecondary credentials is aligned to his proposed America’s College Promise making community colleges free. I find this to be a step in the right direction. It is very favorable as making community college education universal will broaden participation. However, it is another matter as to whether free tuition will consistently convert to more college completers. There is no doubt making community colleges tuition free will boost enrollment. What is going on in Tennessee is a case in point for this as students who would not otherwise attend are enrolling in college. However, with free tuition in Tennessee, community college attendance is up, but the jury is still out on whether the completion rate will increase. What can policymakers do to improve the quality of education and training at community colleges and the career prospects of graduates? Community colleges have a great opportunity to impact the nation in terms of the economy via their workforce development and training. Long gone are the days of the bulk of workers being unskilled laborers. Policymakers should recognize and support community college efforts in training high skill, high demand, highly technical graduates. One way policymakers can assist in improving the quality of education and future career trajectories of community college graduates is to further invest in education, particularly at two-year institutions of higher learning. Community colleges can provide a return on investment to the individual and societal and demonstrate higher education as a public good. By supporting community colleges, policymakers are primed to make a return on their investment as students conferring more college credentials are less likely to be unemployed and have higher earnings. Should community colleges focus more on preparing graduates for the workforce--through career and technical education--or on preparing graduates to move to a 4-year college? It is not an either/or. Community colleges should focus on preparing graduates for both the workforce -- through CTE as well as prepare graduates to transfer to a four-year college. It is important for today’s collegians to have multiple on- and off-ramps, to be able to stack and connect their credentials to pursue gainful employment and/or further education. In evaluating the best and worst community college systems, what are the top 5 indicators? While it would have been ideal for all community colleges to be created equally, that is just not the case. I think students have to individually assess the person-environment fit for themselves. They should ponder which institutions will enable me to transfer to a four-year college in a seamless (or as close to seamless) manner? Is there an articulation agreement in place for the program of study with the university I desire to attend upon transfer? However, talking about indicators of success with community colleges is a bit tricky as the metrics used to inform rating two-year colleges sometimes treat community colleges disparagingly as students come to the community college with different goals and degree completion is not necessarily the end goal. Collegemeasures.org has information community college's graduation and transfer rates and the National Center for Education Statistics offers a College Navigator site that has similar information. However, none of these provide a complete portrait of the institutional culture, campus activities, and so forth. In short, I don’t think there is necessarily a top five indicators of best and worst as it is very contextual. Michelle Van Noy Assistant Research Professor and Associate Director of the Education and Employment Research Center at the School of Management and Labor Relations at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey Do you think Obama’s proposal to make community college tuition free will increase enrollment and graduation rates? Free community college tuition could increase access to higher education for many students who face financial barriers. It may help with completion rates but it is not clear how much -- completion is influenced by many factors beyond the cost of college tuition. A major challenge for many students is the need to work while in school -- free tuition will help some but will not remove the need to work to pay for living expenses. Approaches to help support students working while in school -- "work and learn" models -- are an important strategy. Also, community colleges are currently working on institutional reforms to clarify and better support students’ pathways to completion. What can policymakers do to improve the quality of education and training at community colleges and the career prospects of graduates? Policymakers can promote the alignment of education and training programs with labor market needs through approaches that meet students' long-term career goals and the needs of employers and the labor market. They can support intermediaries that bridge the gap between colleges and the labor market by gathering information on labor market needs and building collaborations. These can include staff at community college, One-Stops, or other labor market intermediaries. Policy makers can also create incentives to involve employers in supporting education through work and learn models. Should community colleges focus more on preparing graduates for the workforce--through career and technical education--or on preparing graduates to move to a 4-year college? This is not an either/or question. College can do both. Many colleges have career pathways that allow students from career and technical programs continue their education at 4-year colleges. Rather than choose between one "track" or another colleges should continue to develop articulation agreements that support students' career pathways progression. In evaluating the best and worst community college systems, what are the top 5 indicators? A challenge with indicators is making sure they factor in student and labor market characteristics. While completion rates and employment rates are good indicators, they will be misleading if these other factors are not accounted for. The equity mission of community colleges is essential to recognize. I suggest looking at the Aspen Institute's work on community college excellence. I think they do a good job of identifying colleges that are doing good work.

Methodology

In order to determine the best community colleges in the U.S., WalletHub’s analysts first selected a sample of 728 schools from the list of member institutions in the American Association of Community Colleges. However, some schools were excluded from our sample due to data limitations. Please note that the AACC is not affiliated whatsoever with WalletHub and was used strictly as an informational resource.

We evaluated the schools based on three key dimensions, including: 1) Cost & Financing, 2) Education Outcomes and 3) Career Outcomes. We constructed the three dimensions using 14 total metrics, each grouped with related metrics in the appropriate category and listed below with its corresponding weight. We graded each metric on a 100-point scale, with a score of 100 representing the best community college.

Finally, we determined each school’s weighted average across all metrics to calculate its total score and used the resulting scores to rank-order our sample.

Cost & Financing – Total Points: 33.33

• Cost of In-State Tuition & Fees: Double Weight (~9.52 Points)
• Presence of Free Community-College Education: Full Weight (~4.76 Points)
• Average Amount of Grant or Scholarship Aid Received: Full Weight (~4.76 Points)
• Per-Pupil Spending: Full Weight (~4.76 Points)
• School Spending Efficiency: Full Weight (~4.76 Points)
• Faculty Salary: Full Weight (~4.76 Points)

Education Outcomes – Total Points: 33.33

• First-Year Retention Rate: Full Weight (~6.06 Points)
• Graduation Rate: Full Weight (~6.06 Points)
• Transfer-Out Rate: Half Weight (~3.03 Points)
• Credentials Awarded per 100 Full-Time-Equivalent Students: Full Weight (~6.06 Points)
• Student-Faculty Ratio: Full Weight (~6.06 Points)

Career Outcomes – Total Points: 33.33

• Return on Educational Investment: Double Weight (~22.22 Points)
• Student-Loan Default Rate: Full Weight (~11.11 Points)

 

Sources: Data used to create this ranking were collected from the National Center for Education Statistics, Council for Community and Economic Research and College Measures.

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