The Aspen Institute today named the 10 community college finalists for the 2027 Aspen Prize for Community College Excellence.
The Aspen Prize, which is backed by $1 million in award funds, honors colleges that achieve strong outcomes, focusing on whether students complete credentials that lead to bachelor’s attainment and jobs that pay family-sustaining wages. The finalists have adopted reforms and practices to improve both completion and post-completion outcomes.
The 10 finalists are:
- Chippewa Valley Technical College (WI)
- Forsyth Technical Community College (NC)
- Lorain County Community College (OH)
- Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College (MS)
- Patrick & Henry Community College (VA)
- South Puget Sound Community College (WA)
- Stanly Community College (NC)
- Tallahassee State College (FL)
- Tri-County Technical College (SC)
- Wallace State Community College-Hanceville (AL)
“Student outcomes like those we see at the 10 finalists cannot be achieved without major reforms to programs of study, student advising systems, and other college practices that we know make a difference,” said Josh Wyner, executive director of the Aspen Institute College Excellence Program.
Strong outcomes
Looking closer at those student outcomes, Mississippi Gulf Coast, Patrick & Henry and Stanly community colleges, for example, have high and improving completion outcomes, well above the national rate of 37% of students completing a community college credential within four years. Stanly Community College has a 49% completion rate and the completion rate at both Mississippi Gulf Coast and Patrick & Henry community colleges is 47%.
Finalist colleges also contributed to strong labor market outcomes in their regions. Chippewa Valley Technical College graduates’ median earnings are 21% ($9,000) more per year than the living wage in the college’s service area.
And when looking at transfer and bachelor’s completion outcomes, about 35% of community college students transfer to a four-year college or university within four years of first enrolling. Of those, 54% complete a bachelor’s degree within six years of first enrolling in community college. But finalist colleges are improving on those rates. At Tri-County Technical College, 58% of students transfer and 77% of those transfer students complete a bachelor’s degree within six years. Meanwhile, between 2020 and 2025, Forsyth Technical Community College has increased the percentage of transfer students completing a bachelor’s degree by 11 percentage points, from 47% to 58%.
Elevating the work
The Aspen Prize selection process began in October 2025, when Aspen applied a formula assessing student outcomes to select 200 colleges and invite them to apply for the Prize. From the 170 that applied, a 15-member independent selection committee chose 25 semifinalists — and now 10 finalists — based on comprehensive outcomes data and evidence of the practices that led to those outcomes.
In fall 2026, teams of experts will conduct in-depth site visits to each finalist institution and review additional data.
“We’re excited to dive in and learn more about how these colleges accomplished these outcomes so that we can elevate their work and enable 1,000 community colleges nationally to achieve similar success,” Wyner said.
The Aspen Prize winner will be announced in April 2027.
To support community colleges in assessing their student outcomes, Aspen has developed a free benchmarking tool that includes the full set of metrics used to evaluate nearly 1,000 community colleges. The tool allows institutions to compare outcomes with top-performing peers, incorporating both data from federal sources and from the National Student Clearinghouse.
