The Aspen Institute Names State Tech to its “Top 150 U.S. Community Colleges” list for 2021.

Published on November 5, 2019

The Aspen Institute Names State Tech to its “Top 150 U.S. Community Colleges” list for 2021.

State Tech is proud to announce we have been named to The Aspen Institute College Excellence Program. State Tech is honored to be considered one of the nation’s top 150 community colleges!

“We have received numerous national accolades, but the Aspen Institute is always a very special recognition. We have one of the very best technical colleges in the country in Linn, MO.  It means a lot when national ranking agencies such as Aspen recognize this.  We get graduates jobs and we are pretty darn good at it.  As we say at State Tech, From the Classroom to your Career, We are the Employers’ Choice, we are State Tech,” said State Tech President Dr. Shawn Strong.

The statement below is from The Aspen Institute’s press release:

The Aspen Institute College Excellence Program today named State Technical College of Missouri as one of 150 community colleges eligible to compete for the $1 million Aspen Prize for Community College Excellence, the nation’s signature recognition of high achievement and performance among America’s community colleges. Based on strong and improving in student outcomes—including in learning, completion rates, employment rates and earnings, and equity—15 percent of community colleges nationwide have been invited to apply for the Aspen Prize.

State Tech is now eligible to compete for the $1 million Aspen Prize for Community College Excellence, the nation’s signature recognition of high achievement and performance among America’s colleges. With a singular focus on student success, the Aspen Prize recognizes institutions with outstanding achievements in four areas: learning; certificate and degree completion; employment and earnings; and high levels of access and success for minority and low-income students.

State Tech was selected from a pool of nearly 1,000 public two-year colleges’ nationwide using publicly available data on student outcomes.  

The top ten finalists for the 2021 Aspen Prize will be named in May 2020. The Aspen Institute will then conduct site visits to each of the finalists and collect additional quantitative data, including employment and earnings data. A distinguished jury will make award decisions in spring 2021.

This latest recognition comes just a few months after State Tech was ranked the best two-year college in the country by WalletHub and recorded their third straight year of record first year enrollment.