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Small alligators stolen in burglary at Hanover Township pet store

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Editor, two others out amid changes at Citizens’ Voice, Standard-Speaker

<p>NANTICOKE &#8212; Luzerne County Community College recently got bragging rights as the topped ranked community college in Pennsylvania.</p><p>The ratings were devised by WalletHub and released online at <a href="https://wallethub.com/edu/best-worst-community-colleges/15076/" target="_blank">wallethub.com</a>. The online explanation notes it used &#8220;17 key indicators of cost and quality&#8221; in reviewing 715 community colleges nationwide. Those 17 indicators were grouped into three broad categories: cost and financing, education outcomes, and career outcomes, which were combined for a total score.</p><p>&#8220;I was thrilled when I found out we were number one,&#8221; said Luzerne County Community College president Thomas P. Leary. &#8220;It&#8217;s nice to be recognized among other great institutions in the state and the nation.&#8221;</p><p>The maximum total score was 100. LCCC scored 42.83. That wasn&#8217;t particularly high nationwide, earning an overall rank 508 among those 715. But it was tops among 13 colleges reviewed in Pennsylvania.</p><p>With the college&#8217;s top ranking, Leary suggested it should serve as a reminder to LCCC&#8217;s mission.</p><p>&#8220;With the top spot, it reinforces that we at LCCC are serving our students effectively and that we will continue to do so,&#8221; he said. &#8220;It also recognizes that the faculty and staff have truly helped the students who&#8217;ve enrolled here.&#8221;</p><p>WalletHub also ranked states for the quality of their community college systems, and the Keystone State ranked poorly overall: 42nd among the 42 state systems scrutinized. Since LCCC must operate within the community college system set up by the sate, that may go a long way in explaining why it got such a low national ranking among individual colleges despite being No. 1 in Penn&#8217;s Woods.</p><p>Perhaps most importantly for local students, among the three broad categories used for the total score, LCCC scored well nationally in &#8220;career outcomes,&#8221; ranking 121 among the 715 schools reviewed.</p><p>LCCC did not do so well in the other two categories, ranking 641st among 715 in the cost and financing category, and 613th in education outcomes.</p><p><strong>State grant, campus work</strong></p><p>The college&#8217;s board of trustees met Tuesday and Leary announced LCCC secured a grant from the Pennsylvania Department of Education that will help its downtown Scranton center that&#8217;s located in the former Bon-Ton at the Marketplace at Steamtown.</p><p>Also during the meeting, officials showed how $360,000 was spent on upgrades at the main campus in Nanticoke. The work was either completed over the summer or will be carried over into the new semester.</p><p>A bulk of the money was used to upgrade technology in classrooms and labs and to repave a parking lot.</p><p>Sandra Nicholas, executive director of the LCCC Foundation, also said the college also set aside $50,000 to help students with textbook costs.</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Leary </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/web1_Leary-tom.jpg</photo0><caption0>Leary </caption0><photoCredit0></photoCredit0></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Mark Guydish and Dan Stokes</p><p>mguydish@www.timesleader.com dstokes@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Mark Guydish at 570-991-6112 or on Twitter @TLMarkGuydish</p><p>Reach Dan Stokes at 570-991-6389 or on Twitter @ByDanStokes</p></shirttailMeta></div>

LCCC declared best of Pennsylvania’s community colleges