Community colleges best in the West

Community colleges serve a vital purpose in the nation’s economy, offering affordable education and skills attainment in relatively short order. As bridges between education and industry, they’re a pipeline for skilled labor and specialized workers in growing areas such as healthcare and technology.

Perhaps that’s why the financial and economic research site WalletHub on Monday released 2016’s Best & Worst Community Colleges. Using national education statistics, they compared 821 community colleges in three, equally weighted areas: cost and financing, education outcomes, and career outcomes. Idaho’s two community colleges didn’t make the top half; North Idaho College ranked 665th, and College of Southern Idaho came in 452nd. Presumably because it’s new, College of Western Idaho was not ranked.

Factors considered under “costs” included in-state tuition and fees, grants availability, per-pupil spending, school spending efficiency (cost per student divided by in-state tuition and fees), and faculty salaries (adjusted for local cost of living).

In addition to graduation rates, measures for education outcomes included rates of first-year retentions and transfers, student-faculty ratios, as well as credentials awarded to full-time-equivalent students. For career outcomes and to determine the return on education investment, analysts considered student loan default rates and the ratio of graduates’ starting salary to the cost of education.

WalletHub took it a step further, analyzing state community college systems as a whole with a weighted average of scores by state. South Dakota ranked highest, but the Northwest dominated the top 10, including Alaska (2), Montana (5), Wyoming (6), and Washington (7). Idaho ranked 22; Oregon, 46; and Utah, 23.

Those who believe the community college mission is so endemic to society’s economic (and, perhaps, social) health that access should be near-universal are gaining. While actual disbursement had not yet begun and therefore could not be included in this study, three states so far — Tennessee, Minnesota, and Oregon — have begun free community college education programs, and 10 more states including Washington have proposed similar legislation.

For more information, see Wallethub.com (rankings) and NCSL.org (free-access legislation by state).

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Sholeh Patrick is a columnist for the Hagadone News Network. Contact her at Sholeh@cdapress.com.