States With Best Community College Systems, Where Does WA, OR Rank?

A new study from WalletHub indicates one of our Pacific Northwest states has a very good community college system, the other–we don’t know. We’ll explain.

   Oregon Lands on Wallet Hub’s top List

The new study ranks the top junior or community colleges in the nation, and which state’s have the best systems.  The bulk of community colleges, or JUCOS for short, are a combination of state, federal, tuition and grant-funded institutions.

 Wallet Hub released the study showing Oregon lands 5th best, and one of their schools, Clackamas CC, is in the top 30 nationally. Maryland, New Mexico followed by South and North Dakota rounded out the top five besides Oregon.

So How Was This List Determined?

According to Wallet Hub:

“Data used to create this ranking were collected as of July 14, 2026 from the National Center for Education Statistics, Campaign for Free College Tuition, U.S. Department of Education and Council for Community & Economic Research.”

The data was used to figure out scores for each school and state based on performance, number of students, and a number of other factors.

   SO, where are WA and Idaho?

This is where it gets interesting.  We combed the study, top to bottom, and even emailed the sources who released it (have not heard back yet), asking why WA, Idaho, Utah, Connecticut, and a number of other states (12) are listed as N/A in the rankings.

In other words, they’re not ranked.  The study did not specify whether data was available for those schools, or why they’re N/A.

However, in the companion article, the Top 20 Community Colleges overall, they did say they utilized data from the American Association of Community Colleges. However, due to what they said were “data limitations” not all member schools were listed. This may explain WA and Idaho and others omissions.

For what it’s worth it does provide some insight to a number of institutions in OR and around the country.