These Are The Best Junior Colleges For Employment In Each State

Whether it be because someone is more focused on work than school or they’re just trying to save money, attending junior colleges has become a common path for millions of students after high school.

We already saw which four-year institutions are the best for landing a job after graduation. Now we want to do the same for junior colleges.

For reference sake, if you missed our study last year on the best junior college in each state for finding a job, check it out here.

Below is a list of each state’s best, but first, here’s the best of the best:

1. Kansas – North Central Kansas Technical College
2. South Dakota – Lake Area Technical Institute
3. Pennsylvania – University of Pittsburgh-Titusville
4. Nebraska – Nebraska College of Technical Agriculture
5. Minnesota – Alexandria Technical amp; Community College
6. Iowa – Northwest Iowa Community College
7. Ohio – Bowling Green State University-Firelands
8. Montana – Miles Community College
9. North Dakota – North Dakota State College of Science
10. South Carolina – Spartanburg Methodist College

Using the Department of Education’s College Scorecard data and data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), we searched for the junior college in each state with the highest listed job placement ratings, looking specifically at employment levels at year 10 after students start.

We added the total number of people employed and unemployed 10 years after entry, then divided the employed number by the sum.

Then, we looked at the ratings themselves and ranked each state’s top school according to their rating. For the purposes of readability, each school’s rating was then rounded down to the last two decimal places, and we included the city each state’s top college was located in.

Ok, that’s it! Now, onto the list.

1. Kansas

• College: North Central Kansas Technical College
• City: Beloit
• Placement Rate: 93.66%
• The school tops our list for the second year in a row, offering highly technical coursework and solid opportunities for specialized work post graduation.

2. South Dakota

• College: Lake Area Technical Institute
• City: Watertown
• Placement Rate: 92.60%
• The growing junior college has over 20,000+ graduates, with 86% of those staying to live and work in South Dakota.

3. Pennsylvania

• College: University of Pittsburgh-Titusville
• City: Titusville
• Placement Rate: 92.40%
• Nestled in the scenic countryside of PA, Pittsburgh-Titusville offers its 514 students a close-knit learning environment and healthy placement rate.

4. Nebraska

• College: Nebraska College of Technical Agriculture
• City: Curtis
• Placement Rate: 92.36%
• Ranking as Nebraska’s best junior college for the second year in a row, the school focuses on livestock and agriculture coursework, and will be introducing a Poultry Production Program in conjunction with Mississippi State University this fall.

5. Minnesota

• College: Alexandria Technical amp; Community College
• City: Alexandria
• Placement Rate: 92.11%
• On top of having the best graduation rate of all Minnesota State Institutions, ATCC is also the only public college in Minnesota to offer a fashion management program.

6. Iowa

• College: Northwest Iowa Community College
• City: Sheldon
• Placement Rate: 92.02%
• This is the second year in a row the school has ranked as the best junior college in The Hawkeye State. The institution offers more than 40 programs and services to its students.

7. Ohio

• College: Bowling Green State University – Firelands
• City: Huron
• Placement Rate: 91.19%
• BGSU-Firelands has probably the coolest name of the top 10. It’s also the school’s second consecutive year in the top spot for Ohio.

  The school boasts an 18 to 1 student to faculty ratio with 22% of its students being nontraditional (over age 25).

8. Montana

• College: Miles Community College
• City: Miles City
• Placement Rate: 91.35%
• Miles CC continues the run of back-to-backs with it ranking as the best JUCO in Montana for the second year in a row, with a placement rate of 91.35%.

9. North Dakota

• College: North Dakota State College of Science
• City: Wahpeton
• Placement Rate: 91.19%
• Founded in 1903, NDSCS is one of the oldest junior colleges in the nation. It’s also one of the most reputed, with a placement rate of 91.19%.

10. South Carolina

• College: Spartanburg Methodist College
• City: Spartanburg
• Placement Rate: 90.97%
• Housed on an 110-acre campus, 60 % of Spartanburg Methodist students live on campus.

  The school also has a great track record of its graduates going onto four-year institutions.

Check out the table below for the best junior college for employment in each state.

Author

McLeod Brown

McLeod Brown is a former writer and researcher for the Zippia Career Advice blog. His work at Zippia focused on understanding the relationship between colleges, debt, and jobs. A graduate of the University of North Carolina at Wilmington with a BA in Business Administrator, he is now pursuing a masters of science in analytics from the Institute of Advanced Analytics.