Bergen Community College
Bergen Community College is located in Paramus, New Jersey. It is a public, 2-year institution.
From Wikipedia: Bergen Community College is a public community college in Bergen County, New Jersey. It was founded in 1965 and opened in 1968. As of November 2021, it is the largest community college in the state, with sites in Paramus, Hackensack, and Lyndhurst and 13,352 students enrolled in degree programs, as well as approximately 5,800 in continuing and adult education programs. Federal data rank Bergen graduates first in earning the highest salaries among their peers from the state’s 19 two-year institutions, and even out-earning peers from some four-year colleges. Bergen has graduated more than half a million students with associate degrees and certificates since its founding in 1968. Bergen Community College is accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools. Individual programs are accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of Allied Health Education Programs, the National League for Nursing, the American Dental Association, the Joint Review Committee on Education in Radiologic Technology, The National Accrediting Agency for Clinical Laboratory Services, and the American Physical Therapy Association. The Paralegal Studies program and the Legal Nurse Consultant program are approved by the American Bar Association.
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Notes
These are items that bear looking into more closely.
- This institution’s full-time undergraduate enrollment has tended to decrease over time.
Overview of institution
This, and the rest of the page, use info from the most recent year available, generally 2023.
Institution kind: Associate’s Colleges: High Transfer-High Traditional
Undergrad program: Associate’s Colleges: High Transfer
Graduate program: Not classified (Exclusively Undergraduate)
Enrollment profile: Exclusively undergraduate two-year (see more details below)
Average net price for undergrads on financial aid: $9,085 . This is 50% the average cost of Harvard.
Actual price for your family: Go here to see what your family may be asked to pay. It can be MUCH lower than the average price but also higher for some.
Size and setting: Two-year, large
In state percentage: 95% of first year students come from New Jersey
In US percentage: 96% of first year students come from the US
Student to tenure-stream faculty ratio: 31.6 (undergrads to tenure-stream faculty) [Tenure explained]
Student to faculty ratio: 27.6 (undergrads to all faculty)
Degrees offered: Certificate of less than 1 year, Certificate of at least 12 weeks but less than 1 year, Certificate of at least 1 year but less than 2 years, Associate’s degree
Schedule: Semester
Institution provides on campus housing: No
Freshmen required to live on campus: No
Advanced placement (AP) credits used: Yes
Disabilities: 7.74 percent of undergrads are registered as having disabilities.
Map
Comparisons
The sections below show this institution compared with others. The ones listed are ones it has identified as peers, who consider themselves peers, and/or who the federal government considers peers. If a comparison school has the same value as the focal school, its cell is grayed out. Arrows show where there is a signficant trend over time for a school. You can swipe across the table to see more of it; the focal school column is always visible.
- Bergen Community College lists these schools as ones to compare itself within federal IPEDS data, and they do the same back: Moraine Valley Community College, SUNY Westchester Community College, Middlesex College, Anne Arundel Community College, Camden County College
- Bergen Community College compares itself to these institutions, but not vice versa: Southwestern College, Chaffey College, Sierra College, College of the Canyons, Monroe Community College, Glendale Community College, Pellissippi State Community College, Joliet Junior College, William Rainey Harper College, Onondaga Community College, Montgomery County Community College, Northampton County Area Community College, UCNJ Union College of Union County, NJ, Delaware County Community College, Triton College
- These institutions compare themselves to Bergen Community College, but not vice versa: Touro University, CUNY Queensborough Community College, Nassau Community College, Community College of Rhode Island, Community College of Philadelphia, Brookdale Community College, City Colleges of Chicago-Malcolm X College, Dutchess Community College, Mercer County Community College, City Colleges of Chicago-Harold Washington College, City Colleges of Chicago-Wilbur Wright College, Berkeley College-Woodland Park, Ocean County College, City Colleges of Chicago-Harry S Truman College, City Colleges of Chicago-Richard J Daley College, Berkeley College-New York, City Colleges of Chicago-Kennedy-King College, Rio Salado College, Lackawanna College, City Colleges of Chicago-Olive-Harvey College, Tulsa Community College
Enrollment
General
Teaching
Tenure track faculty are those who are eligible for tenure. This includes both pre-tenure and tenured faculty. Once faculty get tenure, they are (generally) protected from being fired for intellectual reasons, helping to ensure their freedom in teaching and research. They can still lose their positions for misconduct, financial problems, not fulfilling their duties, or other reasons.
Non-tenure track faculty are not eligible for tenure. Some are hired one semester at a time, some have multi-year contracts. They typically have a higher teaching load than tenure track faculty, leaving less time for research or other creative endeavors. They are also easier to fire than tenured faculty. Sometimes they are external experts (a noted musician, a former senator) who are hired to teach some classes without the expected permanence of a tenure-track position.
Note that this chart uses US federal demographic data: it only has two genders and a specified set of ethnicities and races.
Having a low student to faculty ratio is considered a good thing by many, as it can mean more individual attention.
Geography
This has information on the location of the institution. See the about page for more information on what the metrics are and how they are calculated. The goal is to neutrally provide information: for example, some individuals want stringent gun control in an area, some want the opposite: the categories are meant to be descriptive.
Financial Aid
Graduation
Note these are bachelors graduation rates in six years, not four (this is standard). Sample sizes can be small for some demographic groups with few individuals in a school, leading to large year-to-year fluctuations and often extreme values for those groups (if there are two individuals in the class with a given identity, the possible graduation rates are 0%, 50%, or 100% depending on whether zero, one, or both students graduate within six years).
Library
Libraries are changing rapidly. Note that how institutions count digital collections may vary.
Diversity
The US Census Bureau has a diversity index that goes from 0 to 1. In their words, “A 0-value indicates that everyone in the population has the same racial and ethnic characteristics. A value close to 1 indicates that everyone in the population has different racial and ethnic characteristics.” This uses their formula, but with the resolution available for the federal IPEDS data (which does not separate for a given demographic group whether members identify as Hispanic or not). This metric is about heterogeneity within the population, not the proportion of the population that comes from historically excluded groups.
Following the practice of the census, the index is multiplied by 100 to give the percentage probability a random pair of individuals will have a different background. Most institutions argue that diversity is a benefit, so by default a higher number is listed as better, but there may be cases where this measure does not reflect the mission of a college (for example, 70% of the students at a tribal college or university may be American Indian: that could be low-scoring by this metric but should not be read as “bad” given the institution’s mission).
These numbers are based on the most recent year available, generally 2023, which predates effects of the US Supreme Court’s striking down of affirmative action. This has often changed, sometimes dramatically, the incoming student demographics at some institutions.
Overall diversity
Freshman profile
Demographic data for first time degree-seeking students. Note that this uses US federal demographic data: it only has two genders and a specified set of ethnicities and races.
Freshman geography
Test scores
SAT scores
ACT scores
Majors
This presents information on the number of majors and the median earnings one and five years after graduation for people who got a degree from this institution in that field. The earnings are for those who are working and not enrolled in further education. The earnings data (from the federal college scorecard) also has information on earnings for those categorized as ‘MALE’ and ‘NOMALE’ – for readability, these are recategorized here as “Men” and “Women”, respectively, which adopts the gender binary used in other federal data. “W/M earnings ratio” is the median earnings of women divided by men, as a percentage.