The Best Junior College In Each State For Getting A Job

When it comes to deciding which college you’re going to attend, one of the biggest factors is often that college’s job placement ratings.

Finding a job in today’s economy is becoming less and less of a certainty, even for those with a college degree, an issue that can be exacerbated when you’re looking at colleges that offer 2-year rather than 4-year degrees. Those looking at 2-year degrees are hoping to jump into the work force as soon as possible, and so a college’s reputation for placing its students can have a huge influence on their choice of school.

Not all community colleges are equal in this, and some schools are vastly more supportive of their students’ post-graduation concerns than others. To help showcase some of these stand-out colleges, in addition to the map at the top of this article, we at Zippia have put together a list of the top schools by state in terms of college placement ratings.

Both the map and list were created using information found on the or the CollegeScoreCard data.

Below is a list of the top fifty, but first, here’s the best of the best:

1. North Central Kansas Technical College
2. Southeast Technical Institute
3. Bowling Green State University-Firelands
4. Northwest Iowa Community College
5. Minneapolis Business College
6. Pittsburgh Institute of Aeronautics
7. Nebraska College of Technical Agriculture
8. North Dakota State College of Science
9. University of South Carolina-Lancaster
10. Miles Community College

How did we figure this out?

Using IPEDS, we searched for the college in each state with the highest listed job placement ratings, looking specifically at employment levels at year 10 after students have graduated. When we say “job placement ratings” in this article, it’s these employment levels to which we’re directly referring.

We used the Carnegie Classification to sort out undergraduate colleges — keeping only those where that status is between 1 and 4, the schools we kept on the list met one of the following qualifications:

• Two-year, higher part-time
• Two-year, mixed part/full-time
• Two-year, medium full-time
• Two-year, higher full-time

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 three decimal places, and we included the city each state’s top college was located in.

Did your school make the top ten? Read on to the full list to find out more.

1. North Central Kansas Technical College

Location: Beloit, KS
Placement Rate: 93.32%
College Description: A two-year institution in Beloit, Kansas, focusing mainly on high-tech careers, NCK Tech takes the top spot on our list thanks to its extraordinarily high job placement rating of 93.32%.

2. Southeast Technical Institute

Location: Sioux Falls, SD
Placement Rate: 92.88%
College Description: Another tech college with a remarkably high placement rate, Southeast Tech offers majors in industries like marketing, finance, and a number of technical fields, many of which are also offered via online courses.

3. Bowling Green State University-Firelands

Location: Huron, OH
Placement Rate: 92.75%
College Description: Bowling Green is a two-year insitute offering both business and applied science majors, including fields as disparate as criminal justice and visual media, to name a few.

4. Northwest Iowa Community College

Location: Sheldon, IA
Placement Rate: 92.51%
College Description: Northwest Iowa Community College, located in Sheldon, has a number of pre-professional and technical degrees, mainly related to health and technical fields.

5. Minneapolis Business College

Location: Roseville, MN
Placement Rate: 92.44%
College Description: Minneapolis Business College is a two-year college in Roseville offering a number of legal and technical majors, and even one in Travel and Hospitality. MBC emphasizes the speed with which students can get their degrees, claiming that many degree/diploma programs can be completed in as little as 8 months.

6. Pittsburgh Institute of Aeronautics

Location: West Mifflin, PA
Placement Rate: 92.31%
College Description: Pittsburgh Institute of Aeronautics in West Mifflin, PA, focuses its courses specifically on aviation technology. In addition to aviation repair and technician majors, PIA also offers classes in automotive and aerospace maintenance and repair.

7. Nebraska College of Technical Agriculture

Location: Curtis, NE
Placement Rate: 92.28%
College Description: In addition to the technical courses offered at Nebraska College of Technical Agriculture, the college also has a wide variety of animal and agricultural science courses specifically related to livestock and farming agriculture.

8. North Dakota State College of Science

Location: Wahpeton, ND
Placement Rate: 91.85%
College Description: North Dakota State College of Science — located in Wahpeton, ND — offers an almost unbelievable variety of majors, including everything from agriculture and liberal arts to robotics and performing arts. If you’re looking for a community college with the level of educational options typically reserved for larger universities, this might be your place.

9. University of South Carolina-Lancaster

Location: Lancaster, SC
Placement Rate: 91.31%
College Description: Unlike most of the other schools on this list, the majority of USC-Lancaster’s majors are listed as “pre-baccalaureate,” meaning that the assumption is that someone in this college will go on to a larger university once they’ve completed their studies.

10. Miles Community College

Location: Miles City, MT
Placement Rate: 90.58%
College Description: Miles Community College is another junior college focused on fields like agriculture, nursing, and information technology. MCC nabs the last spot on our top ten list with a placement rate of over 90%.

Wrapping Up

You’ll find the extended list below, but there’s more to see here at Zippia.

Are you a recent college graduate on the hunt for a job? Find out how to best use the internet to apply for jobs online.

Or are you looking for more articles like this one? Check out which companies are the best to work for in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Author

Ryan Morris

Ryan Morris was a writer for the Zippia Advice blog who tried to make the job process a little more entertaining for all those involved. He obtained his BA and Masters from Appalachian State University.