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 Iowa 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.
With a large number of both brick-and-mortar and online colleges in Iowa, students have plenty of great schools to choose from.
Iowa’s largest public university, Iowa State University, serves over 30,000 students and offers extra flexibility for both undergraduate and graduate students through a selection of online degree programs in more than 50 academic fields including business administration, psychology, computer science, and more.
The University of Iowa-home of the Hawkeyes-is also home to some of the nation’s top programs in literature, philosophy, and law. The University of Iowa has also been at the forefront of higher education, starting the nation’s first co-educational medical school, as well as being the first public school to grant a law degree to a woman, Mary B. Hickey Wilkinson, in 1873.
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For prospective students hoping to obtain their degrees at a smaller school, Iowa offers over 40 options to choose from. For a more affordable option, students can pay $4,000 per year for tuition at Indian Hills Community College. Like most community colleges in Georgia, Indian Hills also offers an array of online programs.
At the other end of the spectrum, students will pay up to $52,000 for an academic year at Grinnell College. Furthermore, nearly half of the schools in Iowa are religiously affiliated.
Iowa is often recognized for its agriculture as it produces the most pork and corn in the nation. Equally noteworthy is Iowa’s wealth of one-of-a-kind roadside attractions. From the largest wooden nickel, to the crookedest street, to the Grotto of Redemption, The Hawkeye State is full of wonders. Students in search of curiosities and oddities while earning a degree can attend one of Iowa’s public or private colleges.
Whether you’re looking to earn your associate, bachelor’s, master’s, or doctoral degree, Iowa offers a wealth of on-campus and online learning options. Discover more about Iowa’s top brick-and-mortar and online programs as well as top career paths in the state of Iowa.
We’ve identified 15 community colleges in Iowa. The following list shows the best community colleges and primarily associate degree granting colleges in Iowa.
If you’re interested in an online associate degree, visit our best online associate degrees in Iowa page.
Tuition + fees
$5K
Graduation
41%
Student body
2K
Indian Hills Community College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$5K
Graduation
37%
Student body
8K
Kirkwood Community College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$5K
Graduation
32%
Student body
13K
Des Moines Area Community College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$6K
Graduation
38%
Student body
3K
Iowa Central Community College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$6K
Graduation
47%
Student body
2K
Northeast Iowa Community College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$6K
Graduation
28%
Student body
3K
Hawkeye Community College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$5K
Graduation
36%
Student body
<1K
Ellsworth Community College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$6K
Graduation
29%
Student body
4K
Iowa Western Community College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$6K
Graduation
35%
Student body
2K
Southeastern Community College ’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$6K
Graduation
47%
Student body
1K
Southwestern Community College ’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$6K
Graduation
55%
Student body
2K
North Iowa Area Community College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$5K
Graduation
38%
Student body
3K
Western Iowa Tech Community College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$5K
Graduation
39%
Student body
1K
Marshalltown Community College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$4K
Graduation
40%
Student body
4K
Eastern Iowa Community Colleges’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$7K
Graduation
62%
Student body
1K
Northwest Iowa Community College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Many of our 2022 undergraduate focused rankings look considerably different than 2021. That’s because we took a fundamentally different apporach. For 2021 we utilized our Concentrated Influence algorithm, designed to take away the size advantage larger schools have when we rank their faculty and alumni’s academic influence. Concentrated influence highlights smaller schools that are proportionally as successful as larger universities at cultivating influential alumni and faculty.