Community College Paths to Engineering Technology Degrees

In the United States, 354 colleges and universities award bachelor’s degrees in engineering technology, including 39 community colleges. These primarily two-year schools accounted for 1,114 of the 17,856 ET bachelor’s degrees awarded in 2020. According to a report by the nonpartisan Education Commission of the States, nearly half of all states allow community colleges to award bachelor’s degrees in some fashion; some limit the number of programs or require demonstration of a direct regional workforce need. Of the non-rural institutions that award ET bachelor’s degrees, fewer than one-tenth are community colleges (31 out of 336); for rural institutions, the community college proportion is nearly half (8 of 18). Although the total number of ET bachelor’s degrees conferred may seem small, community colleges produce a sizable share of the nation’s skilled workers in certain fields.

Sources: US Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), 2020, Degree Completions; https://www.ecs.org/wp-content/uploads/Community-College-Bachelors-Degrees.pdf