SBCC has been chosen as the No. 1 Community College in the nation by the website CollegeChoice.net. Santa Barbara City College is one of four California Community Colleges on the list.
SBCC led the way with 100.00 points in the College Choice Score. Broward College (Fla.) was second at 92.88, followed by Meridian Community College (Mississippi) with 92.37, Santa Fe (Fla.) with 91.87 and Flint Hills Technical (Kansas) with 90.07.
Top 50 Community Colleges in the Country
College Choice correlated data from Aspen Institute's College Excellence Program, Payscale, and individual community colleges to compile a list of the 50 best community colleges in the country. The Aspen Institute declared SBCC as the No. 1 Community College in the country in 2015.
They considered several factors in developing an institutional performance score, including first-year retention rates, three-year graduation rates, credentials awarded, etc. They also factored in percentage of non-traditional and minority students, percentage of Pell grants, and minority graduation rates in order to create a diversity score.
Finally, they compared in-district tuition rates and potential salary to give us a sense of the return on investment. Since much of the focus at College Choice is on helping you choose a college, they did not consider schools that did not offer an associate degree and eliminated those schools where associate degrees were an exceptionally low percentage of their annual awards. In the end, they believe these 50 schools represent the best of what can be a wise decision for many prospective college students.
