BAYTOWN, TX — Lee College has again been named one of the best community colleges in the country — this time ranking among the nation’s top ten according to a new study by SmartAsset, a financial technology company that has been featured in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Forbes magazine.
Lee College is the only community college in Texas to make the top ten on SmartAsset’s list, which ranked the 100 best community colleges in the United States.
The company compiled its rankings based on an analysis of 565 public two-year colleges that used four key metrics reflective of quality, cost, student success and return on investment: the graduation and transfer rate at each school; cost of in-state tuition; ratio of average starting salary to the overall cost of attendance; and the student-teacher ratio.
Based on SmartAsset’s calculations, Lee College took the ninth overall spot on the list — due in large part to its wide variety of program options, flexible class offerings to meet the needs of working students and general affordability.
“The school can be a good option for students who want to continue working while taking classes,” researchers concluded. “It is also very inexpensive, with total annual tuition and fees of around $1,500 for in-district students.”
The SmartAsset ranking is the second time this year that Lee College has received national recognition as a top community college. In September, Lee College was named one of the 50 best community colleges in the country by WalletHub, which examined 610 institutions nationwide.
In May, the Brookings Institution ranked Lee College second in the nation for contribution to the economic success of its graduates, placing in the top 1 percent of all community colleges in the United States. In 2014, PayScale ranked Lee College fourth among U.S. two-year institutions for graduate earning potential, and Community College Week recognized the college as one of the top associate degree producers in the country.