NATCHEZ — Copiah-Lincoln Community College has been named to a list of the nation’s best community colleges.

The Aspen Institute — a Washington, D.C.-based education and policy studies organization — awards $1 million Aspen Prize for high achievement and performance at community colleges every two years. Co-Lin was named to its list of 150 top schools earlier this month.

It is the first time Co-Lin has been named to the list.

“We are very excited about this, and I think it reflects positively on our faculty and staff,” Co-Lin President Ronnie Nettles said. “I think it reflects that we do something a little better than the average nationally.”

Factors the Aspen Institute considers when reviewing data from colleges from 35 states include student success in persistence, completion and transfer; consistent improvement in outcomes over time and equity in outcomes for students of all racial, ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds.

“We focus our efforts on student success,” Nettles said. “We have worked certainly on recruiting students but also making sure they get good advisement, that we have retention programs in place and provide excellent instruction, and ultimately that students complete their studies — this is really about making sure students complete.”

The first round of reviews the Aspen Institute did was through reviews of publicly available information. The second round involves the college gathering additional information. Nettles said the college is in the process of looking at the second step.

“Should we be successful in being a finalist, there is literally prize money awarded to those top schools and funds provided for scholarships and those types of things,” he said.

“We are evaluating that, but it is a complex process — nevertheless, it is a positive thing for our college and a positive thing for our state.

Eight other Mississippi colleges were included on the list.