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NANTICOKE &mdash; Luzerne County Community College was seventh among 13 community colleges across Pennsylvania in a new national community college rankings by the website wallethub.com
				The website, which bills itself as &ldquo;dedicated to helping people efficiently attain top Wallet Fitness so they may enjoy life instead of worrying about money,&rdquo; looked at 698 community colleges nation-wide, reviewing &ldquo;18 key indicators of cost and quality.&rdquo;
				The colleges were chosen &ldquo;from the list of member institutions in the American Association of Community Colleges.&rdquo; WalletHub included the caveat that &ldquo;due to data limitations, we were not able to include all member schools.&rdquo; That presumably explains why the rankings for Pennsylvania Colleges did not include Lehigh Carbon Community College.
				The rankings gave one-third of the final score to each of three categories: Cost and financing, education outcomes and career outcomes.
				Data considered under the cost and financing measurement included in state tuition and fees, presence of free education, average grant or scholarship amounts, employment services, per-pupil spending, school spending efficiency (per pupil spending divided by the cost of in-state tuition an fees), and faculty salary.
				Education outcomes included first year retention rate, graduation rate, rate of transfers out, credentials awarded per 100 full-time-equivalent students, student-faculty ration, share of full-time faculty, special learning opportunities (accelerated program, work-study, dual enrollment and weekend/evening college) and credit for life-experience.
				Career outcomes included the student-loan default rate, median salary after attending the school and the share of former students earning above the average of a high school graduate.
				The data was boiled down to a single numeric score, with 100 being the highest. The 13 community colleges in Pennsylvania that were ranked ranged from a low of 42 for Community College of Allegheny County to a high of 51.7 for Bucks County Community College. Luzerne County Community College got a score of 46.8. While that made it 7th in the state, it ranked 595th nationally.
				WalletHub did not give the specific data for each college, but did give the separate national rankings for the three categories of data. LCCC ranked 659 under cost and financing, 450 under education outcomes, and 265 under career outcomes.
				For comparison, the top ranked community college in the nation was State Technical College of Missouri, with a total score of 74.5, a cost and financing rank of 257, an education outcomes rank of 5 and a career outcomes rank of 3.
				The rankings and additional information can be found online at <a href="https://wallethub.com/edu/e/best-worst-community-colleges/15076/#rankings-by-state" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">wallethub</a>.

Luzerne County Community College ranked 7th in the state by wallethub