Best Community Colleges in Kansas 2024

Published: May 7, 2021
Updated: Oct 16, 2023

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 Kansas 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.

Haskell Indian Nations University 94%

Haskell Indian Nations University 26 to 1
Pratt Community College 21 to 1
Coffeyville Community College 21 to 1
Allen Community College 20 to 1
Fort Scott Community College 18 to 1
Independence Community College 18 to 1
Barton Community College 18 to 1
Cowley Community College 18 to 1
Hutchinson Community College 18 to 1
Butler Community College 17 to 1

Northwest Kansas Technical College $17,000
Manhattan Area Technical College $7,650
Salina Area Technical College $7,460
Flint Hills Technical College $6,520
Neosho County Community College $5,032
Wichita State University Campus of Applied Sciences and Technology $4,558
Allen Community College $3,080
Butler Community College $2,900
Hutchinson Community College $2,850
Kansas City Kansas Community College $2,640

Cowley Community College
Flint Hills Technical College
Allen Community College
Pratt Community College
Highland Community College
Northwest Kansas Technical College
Salina Area Technical College
Neosho County Community College
Labette Community College
Manhattan Area Technical College

Haskell Indian Nations University 94%

Salina Area Technical College 5 to 1
Northwest Kansas Technical College 11 to 1
Neosho County Community College 11 to 1
Kansas City Kansas Community College 12 to 1
Dodge City Community College 12 to 1
Labette Community College 12 to 1
Garden City Community College 14 to 1
Flint Hills Technical College 14 to 1
Cloud County Community College 14 to 1
Highland Community College 14 to 1

Haskell Indian Nations University $480
Coffeyville Community College $1,248
Dodge City Community College $1,410
Labette Community College $1,728
Highland Community College $1,810
Fort Scott Community College $1,860
Garden City Community College $1,860
Cowley Community College $2,040
Independence Community College $2,100
Pratt Community College $2,112

Colleges and Universities in Kansas

Prospective students searching for both brick-and-mortar and online colleges in Kansas can choose from a wide range of excellent schools. The Sunflower State offers a wide range of highly accessible public options for Kansas students seeking undergraduate and graduate degrees in a wide range of disciplines.

Kansas is noted for its 23 community and technical colleges. These institutions provide numerous pathways to traditional and online degree programs, and well as online certificate programs for working professionals.

Kansas also has nine public universities, the largest being the University of Kansas (KU) with over 28,000 students. The school’s main campus is located in Lawrence, Kansas, but there are four other locations where students can attend KU classes: Overland Park, Kansas City, Wichita, and Salina. This means there are plenty of options for Kansas students seeking an on-campus experience and in state tuition rates.

It should also be noted that online students attending public colleges in Kansas are also entitled to in state tuition rates.

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Kansas is also home to 22 private higher education institutions, with tuition ranging from $7,000 to $31,000.

In addition, students can choose from one of 18 religiously affiliated schools, including Newman University, Wichita - a Catholic liberal arts university serving the state’s largest private school student population at just over 2,000.

Kansas boasts an array of affordable options for both on-campus and online learners. The average tuition for a year of college in Kansas is $9,230, which is below the national average.

Kansas awards associate, bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees in popular fields of study, like economics, health services administration, early childhood education, elementary education, business administration, and more. Specialized degrees include aerospace engineering at the University of Kansas and agribusiness from Kansas State University.

Students who earn degrees in the medical and health care fields may have access to loan forgiveness-based programs, such as the National Health Service Corps Loan Repayment Program. This financial aid program awards up to $50,000, tax free, for those who serve two years at an approved site.

Arguably, it was the 1939 cinema classic, The Wizard of Oz, that put Kansas on the map. But this midwestern state is also known for its mouth-watering barbecue, open plains, and vast sunflower fields. Prospective students can also choose from traditional and online schools and universities across the state of Kansas.

See what Kansas has to offer by checking out the top undergraduate and graduate degrees, as well as unique educational opportunities like online certificate programs and degree completion programs.

What are Kansas’s Colleges & Universities?

Kansas’s Best Overall

How do we determine Kansas's best community colleges?

Methodology

The people affiliated with a school are ultimately what make it great! 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 in their fields of study.

Most ranking sites rely on an opaque combination of reputation surveys and arbitrary performance metrics. Concentrated Influence provides a ranking that is freer from bias, insulated from manipulation, and reflective of real-world educational outcomes.

To rank the influence of schools, we first determine the influence of scholars and professionals based on the number of citations and publications they have had over the past 10 years. In addition to publications and citations, we consider the web links to and from these sources, and the page views of those sources. We then match the influential people to their alma maters and institutions of employment, so that their influence is attributed to those schools. Our machine-learning Influence Ranking algorithm produces a numerical score of academic achievements, merits, and citations across Wikipedia, wikidata, Crossref, Semantic Scholar and an ever-growing body of data. If you are interested in exploring how and why we rank by influence, explore our methodology in more depth.

We’ve identified 25 community colleges in Kansas. The following list shows the best community colleges and primarily associate degree granting colleges in Kansas.

If you’re interested in an online associate degree, visit our best online associate degrees in Kansas page.