LTCC makes Top 15 list of California community colleges

Due to the rising cost of education in the country, more students are finding the value in the California Community College system. In fact, community colleges in California make up the largest system of higher education in the United States with 2.1 million students on 112 campuses.

With statistics like this, the recognition given to Lake Tahoe Community College this week show how unique the local school is now that LTCC has made the list of "Top Community Colleges in California."

Lake Tahoe Community College has a graduation and transfer rate of 48% and a first year retention rate of 82.8%. The approximate enrollment of 3,000 students spend an average of $14,199 to $19,620 to attend according to www.edsmart.org who released the Top 15 report.

Here are some Community College facts:

- California community colleges educate 70 percent of our state’s nurses.
- California community colleges train 80 percent of firefighters, law enforcement personnel, and emergency medical technicians.
- Twenty-nine percent of University of California and 51 percent of California State University graduates started at a California community college.
- Transfer students from the California Community Colleges to the University of California system currently account for 48 percent of UC’s bachelor’s degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
- Community colleges offer associate degrees and short-term job training certificates in more than 175 fields, and more than 100,000 individuals are trained each year in industry-specific workforce skills.
- Nearly 42 percent of all California veterans receiving GI educational benefits attend a California community college for workforce training, to earn an associate degree or to work toward transferring to a four-year university.