RALEIGH – Wake Tech Community College scores a perfect 100 – call that an A Plus – and thus takes the No. 1 spot in a new ranking of online programs for community colleges across the country.
Wake Tech
“What does it take to earn the number one spot on our ranking? Although there are plenty of great schools on this list, none hold up to the overall variety, affordability, and quality of WTCC.,” says the report from Best Value Schools.
“For starters, Wake Technical Community College boasts a truly enormous selection of online programs – 130, to be exact. Good luck picking a major from this set, which includes everything from a Baking and Pastry Arts certificate to an AAS in Storage and Virtualization (whatever that is).
“Add high retention and low tuition rates on top of everything else and what do you have? The best community college online.”
Best Value Schools assigned Wake Tech a “100” score based on several criteria.
Here are the top 10 schools:
- Wake Technical Community College
- Northcentral Technical College
- Lake Area Technical Institute
- Barton County Community College
- Columbus State Community College
- Minnesota West Community and Technical College
- Great Basin College
- Lincoln Land Community College
- Central Texas College
- Southeastern Technical College
Some 1,100 community colleges were ranked in the study.
Selection Criteria
“For this first round of filtering, we focused mainly on the number of online degrees – counting only associate’s, certificate, and diploma programs – that each college offers. If two schools in one state provide a similar number of degrees online, we then looked at retention and graduation rate statistics to tip the balance,” Best Value Schools said.
“Once we had identified the best online community college in each state, we ranked these top 50 schools by assigning them points in four categories:
- Their selection of online degrees and certificates (including hybrid programs with at least 75% of coursework available at a distance)
- Undergraduate retention rate (the percentage of new students who returned to the school for a second year)
- Undergraduate graduation rate (the percentage of full-time students who completed their program in at least 150% of expected time)
- The annual total cost of in-state tuition and fees
“All the information we used in this ranking came from either the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), the related College Navigator database, or directly from the colleges’ official websites,” the study adds.
“After calculating the results for each school in each category, we added up the point totals and assigned final scores. Lastly, we scaled these scores so that the #1 community college earned a full 100 points.”
