BC3 receives 5th No. 1 rating in 5 years
BUTLER TWP — Butler County Community College is ushering in the New Year with another No. 1 ranking.
BestColleges.com rated BC3 as the top two-year college in Pennsylvania for 2020 — the fifth No. 1 ranking the school has received since 2015.
“For the fifth time in five years, we've achieved the No. 1 ranking in the commonwealth,” BC3 President Nick Neupauer told the school's board of trustees Wednesday.
BestColleges.com bestowed its top rating on BC3 in 2017 and Schools.com gave the school its top ranking in 2015, 2017 and 2019.
Both organizations based their ranking on information from the U.S. Department of Education.
“As the parents and the students, the consumers of higher eduction, are looking to make decisions, this really validates not only how special we are, but the quality that we have at BC3,” Neupauer said.
BestColleges.com used information from 2018 to measure the retention rate of first-time students after their first semester and the graduation rate of full-time, first-time students in three years.
Department of Education information reveals that 60 percent of BC3's first-time, full-time students and 44 percent of first-time, part-time students in fall 2017 returned for the spring 2018 semester. The average among Best College.com's top 15 schools was 57 percent and 48 percent, respectively.
Affordability was measured by net price — the amount students borrow and the amount they owe after graduation — and online competency, the percentage of students enrolled in distance education.
Tuition and fees for Butler County BC3 students pursuing 15 credits per semester for one year in the 2019-20 academic year are $5,100, with annual savings that range from $6,194 compared to Pennsylvania's public four-year institutions to $31,701 compared to private institutions.
Single mother Hailey Alwine, 19, of Butler, incurred $14,000 in student loan debt while attending a Pennsylvania public four-year institution for three semesters. She transferred this spring to BC3, where she did not need a student loan and hopes to enter the college's Nursing, R.N. program.
“I wish I would have applied here, and I wish I would have attended here before,” Alwine said.
BC3's affordability was important for Damian Gurner, 36, of Butler, who enrolled this spring with hopes of earning an associate degree in social work, transferring to a four-year institution and one day becoming a drug and alcohol counselor.
“If I can't afford to go, I can't make it,” said Gurner, a 2002 Butler High School graduate who said his mother and stepfather graduated from BC3 in 1993. “The grants covered it completely. The only thing I have to do is show up and do my best.”
Joseph Kubit, chairman of the board of trustees, said many at the school share in the credit for the rankings.
“We are blessed to have a faculty, administration and staff who focus upon and are committed to providing our students with the highest quality and most affordable education and training possible,” Kubit said.
In other business, Brian Opitz, executive director of operations, said many contractors are interested in the first phase of a main campus renovation project known as the “south campus project” that will get under way in May.
He said the school will seek bids beginning Feb. 2. A prebid meeting will be held Feb. 11 and bids will be opened March 3.
The first phase includes construction of a maintenance building, demolition of the existing maintenance building, construction of a connector road from Old Plank Road and site preparation and utility extensions for the Victor K. Phillips Nursing and Allied Health Building.
Construction of the nursing building is the second phase of the project, and it will be designed after the first phase construction begins. The construction cost of both phases is estimated at $18 million.
