Highlighting the need to improve student learning and  graduation rates in community colleges — leading to good jobs — the Aspen Institute College Excellence Program today announced that Valencia College in Orlando, Florida, is the nation’s top community college and honored four “finalists with distinction” from an original pool of over 1,000. The announcement follows a rigorous, yearlong effort by the Aspen Institute to assemble and review an unprecedented collection of data on community colleges and the critical elements of student success: student learning, degree completion and transfer, equity and employment/earnings after college.