Valencia best in Nation

    Valencia College won the inaugural Aspen Prize for Community College Excellence. Announced in a ceremony held  Dec.12  at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., the award comes with $600,000 in prize money.
    "It is such a privilege to represent my colleagues and the hundreds of community colleges across the country that have done amazing work for years and years," said Dr. Sanford Shugart, president of Valencia College, show receiving the prize at left in the photo above. "The whole country is looking to us these days, it seems. The nation has discovered that we have this unique instrument at hand. We are institutions where excellence is not defined by exclusivity."
     In selecting Valencia as the best community college in America, Aspen officials noted that over half of the college's full-time students graduate or transfer within three years of entering the school, a rate significantly higher than the national average (51 percent versus 39 percent).
      Because community colleges also train students for the workforce, Aspen judges focused on the college's workforce training programs and the likelihood of graduates landing jobs. They noted that Valencia graduates "are employed at rates higher than graduates from any of the other 10 Aspen Prize finalists. This is especially impressive given the region's unusually high unemployment rate and low job growth rate."
Watch a video here.