WASHINGTON, D.C., May, 2021—The Aspen Institute College Excellence Program announced at a virtual award ceremony today that Texas’s San Antonio College, one of five colleges in the Alamo Colleges District, is the winner of the 2021 Aspen Prize for Community College Excellence, the nation’s signature recognition of high achievement and performance among America’s community colleges.

The $1 million Aspen Prize, awarded every two years since 2011, recognizes outstanding institutions selected from more than 1,000 community colleges nationwide. The Aspen Prize assesses performance in six areas: teaching and learning, certificate and degree completion, transfer and bachelor’s attainment, workforce success, equity for students of color and students from low-income backgrounds, and leadership and institutional culture.

San Antonio College, a first-time finalist for the Aspen Prize, serves 35,000 students, two-thirds of whom are Hispanic, Black, or Native American—a far more diverse population than community colleges on average. Its graduation and transfer rate improved nearly 20 points over four years, to 48 percent, 2 points above the national average.
 
“At San Antonio College, there’s a family feeling, a pervasive understanding that it’s everyone’s job to make sure students succeed,” said Linda Perlstein, a director at the Aspen Institute College Excellence Program. “The college has built extraordinary systems to advance this culture—constantly analyzing whether students are getting what they need to learn, progress, and achieve their goals after graduation, and adapting accordingly as an institution. San Antonio College is truly an exemplar for continuous improvement in higher education.”

As winner of the 2021 Aspen Prize, San Antonio College will receive $600,000.
Aspen also recognized three community colleges as Finalists with Distinction: Broward College (Florida), San Jacinto College (Texas), and West Kentucky Community and Technical College (Kentucky). Amarillo College (Texas) received the Rising Star award for rapid improvement. Each will receive $100,000.

Rounding out the Aspen Prize top 10, named in spring 2020, are Borough of Manhattan Community College (New York), Odessa College (Texas), Pasadena City College (California), Pierce College (Washington), and Tallahassee Community College (Florida). The finalists—located in rural and urban areas with demographically different student bodies and a varied mix of technical workforce and academic transfer programs—prove that community colleges can achieve strong and improving student success rates in very different contexts.

Speaking at the ceremony, First Lady Jill Biden offered congratulations and commended the Aspen Prize finalists for “remarkable achievements.” According to Biden, “The best institutions don’t just teach, they empower, they meet students where they are and help them to get to where they want to go. That’s what the Aspen Prize is all about, recognizing the schools that are leading the way, showing us that all students can learn, achieve, and thrive, if only they have the opportunities and support they need.”

Also speaking at the ceremony was U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona, who said, “This year’s finalists are an impressive roster of innovative and inclusive institutions that put student success at the core of all they do.”

The 18-month Aspen Prize review process includes the examination of extensive data on performance and improvements, along with site visits to each finalist college. The jury of education, business, and nonprofit leaders who chose the winner and runners-up and allocated the prize purse was co-chaired by Freeman Hrabowski, president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and Ruth Williams-Brinkley, president of Kaiser Foundation Health Plan of the Mid-Atlantic States.

“More than ever, this pandemic has taught us that we all need to be continuously learning, and evolving, and pushing forward—on public health, on race, on the economy and technology,” Hrabowski said at the award ceremony. “The community colleges we honor today are at the forefront of that evolution.”

“The Aspen Prize recognizes the important role our community colleges play, not just in helping individuals pursue the American dream, but also in ensuring the health of American communities,” Williams-Brinkley said. “They are building the workforce that enables our nation’s prosperity—and contributing to a more equitable society.”

Previous winners and finalists can be found on the Aspen Prize website.
 
The Aspen Prize is generously funded by Ascendium Education Group, Joyce Foundation, and Siemens Foundation.