Best Community Colleges in Ohio 2023

Published: May 3, 2021
Updated: May 22, 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 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.

10 Best Community Colleges in Ohio

Cuyahoga Community College

23%

Hocking College

19%

BGSU Firelands

19%

Sinclair Community College

19%

Columbus State Community College

18%

Owens Community College

17%

Eastern Gateway Community College

17%

North Central State College

17%

Lorain County Community College

16%

Zane State College

15%

Eastern Gateway Community College

47 to 1

Northwest State Community College

24 to 1

Edison State Community College

24 to 1

Stark State College

21 to 1

BGSU Firelands

20 to 1

Southern State Community College

20 to 1

Zane State College

20 to 1

Columbus State Community College

20 to 1

Sinclair Community College

17 to 1

Hocking College

17 to 1

Stautzenberger College

$16,699

$14,130

$14,080

$5,520

$5,390

North Central State College

$5,088

Columbus State Community College

$5,038

Marion Technical College

$5,000

Southern State Community College

$4,907

Central Ohio Technical College

$4,896

Davis College

11%

Stautzenberger College

12%

Terra State Community College

12%

Washington State Community College

12%

Edison State Community College

12%

Cincinnati State Technical and Community College

12%

Clark State College

12%

Marion Technical College

13%

Northwest State Community College

13%

Chatfield College

13%

Chatfield College

5 to 1

Davis College

8 to 1

James A. Rhodes State College

9 to 1

Marion Technical College

10 to 1

Lakeland Community College

12 to 1

Washington State Community College

12 to 1

Cincinnati State Technical and Community College

13 to 1

Owens Community College

14 to 1

Terra State Community College

14 to 1

14 to 1

$2,898

$3,036

$3,296

Edison State Community College

$3,488

Lakeland Community College

$3,611

Sinclair Community College

$3,649

Hocking College

$3,816

Lorain County Community College

$4,007

Washington State Community College

$4,008

Cincinnati State Technical and Community College

$4,050

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.