Sheldon, Iowa — Northwest Iowa Community College in Sheldon has been ranked 5th in the nation for two-year colleges with the best three-year graduation rates by the Chronicle of Higher Education.
The rankings were released in the August 20, 2021 edition of their annual The Chronicle of Higher Education’s 2020-21 Almanac report and NCC was the 5th best two-year public college in the nation for graduation rates of first-time, full-time, degree or certificate seeking students who entered in the fall of 2016 and completed an associate degree or earned a certificate at the same institution within 150 percent of the normal time to completion for that program. Students pursuing two-year degrees for example, counted as graduating if they had completed the program in three years (by August 31, 2019).
NCC was listed as 5th in the nation with 240 students in the cohort. Of those 240 students, 150 completed their programs within 150 percent of expected time and there was an overall completion rate of 68.85%. Nearly 27% completed less than two-year programs and 42.1% completed two-year programs. Finally, 9.6% transferred to another institution before completion and 1.7% were still enrolled at the College.
The other colleges listed in the top 10 with best graduation rates were: State Technical College of Missouri; Mitchell Technical Institute, South Dakota; Lake Area Technical Institute, South Dakota; De Anza College, California; Samson Community College, North Carolina; Olney Central College, Illinois; North Central Kansas Technical College; and Frontier Community College, Illinois.
