The best community colleges provide an effective springboard into higher education, offering students high-quality two-year degree programs in a wide range of disciplines. The top-rated community colleges in Illinois offer a broad selection of associate’s degrees, affordable tuition rates, and strong partnerships with public four-year schools so that students can easily transfer their credits into accredited bachelor’s degree programs.
Illinois offers over 130 higher education institutes throughout the state. More than half of those schools are private, including the well-known DePaul University, Northwestern University, and Loyola University Chicago. While tuition at these three private schools can be costly, ranging from $44,000 to $55,000, graduation rates are high. Tuition at the University of Illinois at Chicago and Illinois State University, the state’s two largest public universities, however, is lower, falling in the range of $13,000 to $15,000.
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While some of these universities have large student populations, Illinois is also home to many small schools, including Benedictine University and National Louis University. Students choosing to study at one at an Illinois college can pursue degrees in areas like criminal justice, social work, nursing, education, religious studies, communications, and medicine. Additionally, Illinois offers several loan forgiveness program for qualifying students pursuing careers as teachers, public defenders or prosecutors, or nurses.
From the skyscrapers in Chicago to the vast prairie lands in the north, Illinois is a place where city meets country. Students can grab a Chicago-style hotdog on the way to a Cubs game, explore the ancient sandstone cliffs in the Shawnee National Forest, or admire an exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago, all while attending one of The Prairie State’s universities or colleges.
The higher education institutes in Illinois have also produced many prominent alumni, including Stephen Colbert, Hugh Hefner, and Kurt Vonnegut. Students hoping to walk the same streets as these well-known individuals can check out some of the state’s top programs and universities.
The people affiliated with a school are ultimately what make it great. This is why, at the undergraduate level, we rank the best colleges and universities based on what we call “Concentrated Influence”. Concentrated Influence takes the combined influence score of a college or university’s top academic influencers (including faculty and alums) and divides it by the school’s total number of undergraduates.
Using concentrated influence gives small and mid-sized schools an opportunity to shine by taking away the size advantage of larger universities. A small school with proportionately more influential faculty than a large school, whose influence in absolute terms may be bigger, will nonetheless score higher in a concentrated influence ranking. Our approach highlights undergraduate schools that truly rank for excellence, regardless of size.
If you are serious about finding the best colleges and universities for a bachelor’s degree, you should be asking where the most influential professors are teaching and whether their graduates are themselves advancing the school’s reputation for academic excellence.
Most ranking sites rely on an opaque combination of reputation surveys and arbitrary performance metrics. Concentrated Influence provides a ranking that is free from bias, insulated from manipulation, and reflective of real-world educational outcomes.
Find out more about our ranking methodology here.
There are 47 community colleges in Illinois. The following list shows the best community colleges in the state.
Tuition + fees
$12K
Graduation
28%
Student body
2K
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Kennedy–King College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$6K
Graduation
43%
Student body
2K
View profile
Richland Community College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$10K
Graduation
51%
Student body
3K
View profile
Lewis and Clark Community College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$12K
Graduation
24%
Student body
2K
View profile
Olive–Harvey College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$8K
Graduation
35%
Student body
3K
View profile
Black Hawk College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$7K
Graduation
38%
Student body
4K
View profile
Lincoln Land Community College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$10K
Graduation
22%
Student body
15K
View profile
College of DuPage’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$6K
Graduation
49%
Student body
1K
View profile
Shawnee Community College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$10K
Graduation
35%
Student body
9K
View profile
Harper College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$12K
Graduation
21%
Student body
5K
View profile
Harold Washington College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$12K
Graduation
28%
Student body
5K
View profile
Truman College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$8K
Graduation
47%
Student body
5K
View profile
Lake Land College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$4K
Graduation
18%
Student body
9K
View profile
Joliet Junior College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$12K
Graduation
23%
Student body
5K
View profile
Malcolm X College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$12K
Graduation
32%
Student body
5K
View profile
Richard J. Daley College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$10K
Graduation
72%
Student body
<1K
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Frontier Community College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$6K
Graduation
40%
Student body
<1K
View profile
Southeastern Illinois College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$9K
Graduation
39%
Student body
5K
View profile
Illinois Central College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$9K
Graduation
17%
Student body
3K
View profile
Prairie State College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$9K
Graduation
36%
Student body
5K
View profile
Rock Valley College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$13K
Graduation
41%
Student body
2K
View profile
Illinois Valley Community College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$13K
Graduation
33%
Student body
2K
View profile
Kankakee Community College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$10K
Graduation
42%
Student body
3K
View profile
Heartland Community College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$12K
Graduation
31%
Student body
5K
View profile
Parkland College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$8K
Graduation
29%
Student body
9K
View profile
Moraine Valley Community College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
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