Texas Border Business
McALLEN, TEXAS – South Texas College has been named the ‘Best Online Community College’ in Texas and among the best in the nation according to Premium Schools, a leading source of information for quality degree programs.
To produce the list, Premium Schools looked at all of the community colleges offering online degrees across the country and made their comparison based on certain criteria.
“We looked at every community college in the nation that offers some online degrees. We then sectioned them by state and compared graduation rates, as well as the average cost of attendance after financial aid was applied,” Malcolm Peralty, chief editor of Premium Schools explains on how they came up with the list.
Attending an in-state online community college is beneficial to students simply because it can certainly offer lower costs. As a matter of fact, many states in the U.S. are offering a 100 percent free college education to first time students within the state they reside.
Additionally, a number of community colleges in the country have transfer agreements with other four-year schools. It is another privilege that gives students with outstanding grade point averages (GPA) automatic admission to a bachelor’s degree program.
Online enrollment has increased significantly on a national and state level.
That was an assessment by South Texas College experts who have been monitoring online education trends as they seek to provide opportunities for students as the fall semester gets underway.
The verdict – Online courses across the nation have quadrupled in the last 15 years, and one in six students are taking online classes exclusively, according to a report by Brookings Institute.
At STC, 12,199 students took courses exclusively online as of fall 2020 driven by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Starting in 1997 with two course sections and 57 students, the Distance Learning Program at STC has since expanded to include 35 online programs, 5,080 online sections, 978 online faculty, and over 14,000 traditional online students as of fall 2020.
Students can earn one of 35 degrees and certificates entirely online as they pursue their career goals.
“We share the stage in this report with some awesome institutions,” said Dr. Rachel Sale, STC Dean of Distance Learning. “It’s great to know we are being recognized for all of the hard work from faculty and administration.”
