Sheldon, Iowa — Northwest Iowa Community College has been named as the best community college in the nation for colleges that are most associated with upward economic mobility. In a study conducted by the Brookings Institute, Opportunity engines: Middle-Class Mobility in Higher Education, NCC ranked No.1 out of the 2-year schools from across the nation.
The Brookings Institute is a nonprofit public policy organization based in Washington, DC. Their mission is to conduct in-depth research that leads to new ideas for solving problems facing society at the local, national and global level. On their website they explain the reason for the study, “Inequality in the United States has been rising in recent decades, while intergenerational mobility remains low. This means that absolute mobility — the extent to which children are economically better off than their parents — is declining, and intergenerational inequality is increasingly entrenched.” They go on to state, “Our measure is the share of students at a college who come from the middle quintile of the parental income distribution — and move up at least one quintile in adulthood.”
Dr. Alethea Stubbe, NCC President, talks about the honor and what it means to the college.
(As said, “We are very happy that we’re recognized for this again because this is what we exist for. This is our mission. Our mission is to be that opportunity engine and give a huge return on investment by students who are attending NCC. We enroll students who have higher earnings as adults than anyone else, and that to us is success.”)
Dr. Stubbe talks about why the community college systems were developed across the United States.
(As said, “Again this is why the community college systems were developed across the United States and it is fundamentally providing access to the American Dream. It shows that if you work hard, you can benefit from that hard work to help yourself, your family, and your community thrive. And we all want that for the next generation, whether its for our children or grandchildren. We want them to be more successful than we were, and this report is just one indicator that helps our community members realize that we are achieving just that.”)
The researchers for The Opportunity Insights Mobility Report Cards used data for this study that built on the College Scorecard Data compiled by the U.S. Department of Education. They also compiled de-identified data from tax returns, linked to information about colleges, to construct this publicly available database for colleges in the United States.
Top 5 2-Year Colleges in the U.S.A:
1. Northwest Iowa Community College
2. North Dakota State College of Science
3. Lake Area Technical Institute
4. Linn State Technical College
5. Mitchell Technical Institute
To read the report in its entirety: https://www.brookings.edu/research/opportunity-engines-middle-class-mobility-in-higher-education/?preview_id=807920
