Best Community Colleges in Ohio 2024

Badge for BEST IN OHIO COMMUNITY COLLEGES

Published: May 3, 2021
Updated: Apr 3, 2024

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 Ohio 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.

Cuyahoga Community College
Sinclair Community College
BGSU Firelands
Columbus State Community College
Hocking College
Eastern Gateway Community College
Owens Community College
North Central State College
Lorain County Community College
Cincinnati State Technical and Community College

Eastern Gateway Community College 33 to 1
Northwest State Community College 25 to 1
Edison State Community College 24 to 1
Stark State College 20 to 1
Stautzenberger College 18 to 1
Columbus State Community College 17 to 1
Southern State Community College 17 to 1
James A. Rhodes State College 17 to 1
Owens Community College 16 to 1
BGSU Firelands 16 to 1

Stautzenberger College $16,699
Davis College $14,130
Chatfield College $14,080
Marion Technical College $5,700
Zane State College $5,670
BGSU Firelands $5,637
North Central State College $5,388
Columbus State Community College $5,188
Southern State Community College $5,132
Central Ohio Technical College $5,016

Clark State College
Chatfield College
Davis College
Stautzenberger College
Terra State Community College
Cincinnati State Technical and Community College
Edison State Community College
Washington State Community College
Belmont College
Northwest State Community College

Davis College
Terra State Community College
Stautzenberger College
Clark State College
Washington State Community College
Edison State Community College
Marion Technical College
Belmont College
Northwest State Community College
Chatfield College

Chatfield College 5 to 1
Davis College 7 to 1
Lakeland Community College 10 to 1
Cuyahoga Community College 11 to 1
Cincinnati State Technical and Community College 12 to 1
Central Ohio Technical College 13 to 1
Marion Technical College 13 to 1
Belmont College 13 to 1
Terra State Community College 13 to 1
Clark State College 13 to 1

Stark State College $3,036
Belmont College $3,140
Clark State College $3,416
Edison State Community College $3,600
Hocking College $3,816
Sinclair Community College $3,889
Lakeland Community College $3,927
Eastern Gateway Community College $4,115
Washington State Community College $4,128
Lorain County Community College $4,187

Colleges and Universities in Ohio

Ohio offers over 120 colleges and universities for students to earn their associate, bachelor’s, master’s, or doctoral degree. The largest school in the state, Ohio State University, a public institution, serves almost 55,000 students. This university has five regional campuses, which have graduated alumni like writer Harlan Ellison and Wikipedia cofounder Larry Sanger. The majority of Ohio’s schools, however, are private.

Find college admissions consultants in your state.

Tuition at these schools varies greatly, with costs as low as $7,000 at God’s Bible School and College, and as high as $56,000 at Kenyon University. The state is also home to nearly 40 higher education institutes with religious affiliations, offering plenty of options for students aiming to blend their faith with higher education. Although tuition costs in Ohio are higher than the national average, Ohio provides several loan forgiveness programs to those pursuing careers as public defenders and prosecutors, dentists, nurses, primary care physicians, and mental health providers. Many of these programs require individuals to work in shortage areas around the state for a certain time period in order to qualify.

If you’re someone with a wide variety of interests, Ohio might just be the place for you. In The Buckeye State, individuals can visit the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, take a trip through Amish Country, attend a professional sporting event, and hike waterfalls in Cuyahoga Valley National Park. It seems this state has something for everyone, including those pursuing a higher education degree.

Learn more about the numerous excellent degree paths and career prospects available in Ohio.

What are Ohio’s Colleges & Universities?

Ohio’s Best Overall

How do we determine Ohio'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 26 community colleges in Ohio. The following list shows the best community colleges and primarily associate degree granting colleges in Ohio.