Tulsa Community College is in the middle of the pack in national study

In a national survey of 715 community colleges, Tulsa Community College ranked as No. 388 in WalletHub’s “Best & Worst Community College Systems.”

TCC is No. 388 overall and No. 375 in cost.

Northern Oklahoma College has the No. 1 ranking in “highest return on educational investment” while Los Angeles Southwest College has the lowest return at No. 519.

“Community colleges offer students the ability to get higher education without having as much financial strain,” according to WalletHub.com. “During the 2017 to 2018 academic year, tuition and fees for full-time, in-state enrollment at a public two-year college averaged $3,570 per year versus $9,970 at a public four-year institution and $34,740 at a four-year private school. Students who earn their general-education credits at a community college before transferring to an in-state public four-year university can potentially save a lot of money.”

TCC tuition is $108.55 per hour for residents and $326.55 for non-residents. If you add in a standard set of fees, the total per credit hour is $138. Thirty hours over two semesters would cost at least $4,140.

TCC has a unique program called “Tulsa Achieves.” It pays full tuition and fees for qualified high school graduates by covering the gap between available state and federal aid and the full cost of tuition and fees. To get access, a student must be a high school graduate living in Tulsa County with a 2.0 or higher grade point average. Students from public, private and homeschool are eligible. Tulsa Achieves students are required to complete an application for federal aid and work for 40 volunteer hours in an academic year.

There is a small national movement to force government to give free tuition to all state-supported colleges to boost graduation rates.

“I don’t think that free college would improve graduation rates significantly,” said Associate Professor Ron Flowers of Eastern Michigan University. “Kalamazoo Promise hasn’t had stellar success. There would be in influx of students into programs, but as there are no fees (or skin in the game), it would be easy for students to walk away. There, of course, is concern around tuition, but the bigger issues have to do with the competencies – or the lack thereof – of the students. Education for the sake of education is not valued in our society, so simply cutting tuition rates isn’t the silver bullet.”

“Other than serving as an affordable, and in some cases free, option for education, community colleges have a number of attractive qualities,” the report stated. “They often provide more flexible schedules, smaller class sizes and rigorous coursework. Some even go beyond two-year programs to offer four-year bachelor’s degrees. These qualities advantages appeal especially to students who need to balance their studies with other commitments, such as family and work.”

WalletHub compared 715 community colleges across 17 key indicators of cost and quality. The data ranges from the cost of in-state tuition and fees to student-faculty ratio to graduation rate.

The college with the lowest cost is Tohono O’Odham Community College in Arizona. That school is atop (with a five-way tie) for the highest per-pupil spending. The highest cost is a five-way tie with Parkland College in Illinois, Community College of Beaver County (Pennsylvania), Joliet Junior College (Illinois), McHenrry County College (Illinois) and Southwestern Illinois College (Illinois). The lowest per-pupil spending is at Wabash Valley College in Illinois.

The Lake Area Technical Institute in South Dakota has the highest graduation rate while the Little Big Horn College in Montana has the worst graduation rate.