BUTLER TWP — For the second time in a row Butler County Community College has been crowned king among the state’s 14 community colleges.

In a news release Friday BC3 said it has been ranked first by a Schools.com survey of community colleges across the state.

The Foster, Calif.-based organization evaluated the schools using a five point scale that included costs, student-to-faculty ratios and the number of transfer agreements each school has with other institutions in Pennsylvania.

The last time Schools.com published the rankings was 2015.

BC3 president Nick Neupauer called the school’s back-to-back No. 1 rankings a testament to the school’s importance in the eight counties it serves.

“This also speaks to the commitment from the entire BC3 team to provide affordable, accessible and above all, quality education to the students we serve,” Neupauer said.

Among the metrics used to evaluate the colleges is distance learning — something BC3 said it excels at. Nearly 34 percent of the school’s credit students this fall are studying at off-campus locations in Brockway, Cranberry Township, Ford City, New Castle and Hermitage, the school said in a news release.

Three-hundred students at the school are taking distance education courses, and 863 are enrolled in at least one online course according to Sharla Anke, the school’s assistant dean of institutional outreach.

More than 11 percent of credit hours taken by BC3 students are online courses, she said.