by our College Data Analytics Team
In its yearly rankings, College Factual analyzes over 2,000 colleges and universities to determine which ones are the best in a variety of categories, such as overall value, quality, diversity, which schools are the best for each major, and much more.
Mountain Empire Community College was awarded 14 badges in the 2025 rankings. The highest ranked major at the school is nursing.
Explore the best ranked schools for the programs you are most interested in.
MECC is ranked #1,055 out of 2,152 schools in the nation for overall quality on College Factual's 2025 Best Colleges list. This is an improvement over the previous year, when MECC held the #2,006 spot on the Best Overall Colleges list.
MECC also holds the #27 spot on the Best Colleges in Virginia ranking.
See all of the rankings for Mountain Empire Community College.
Mountain Empire Community College has an open admissions policy, so you should not have much trouble being accepted by the school. Still, it is important to fill out the application completely and submit any requested materials, which may include proof that you have a high school diploma or the equivalent.
The student to faculty ratio is often used to estimate how much interaction there is between professors and their students at a college or university. At Mountain Empire Community College, this ratio is 18 to 1, which is on par with the national average of 15 to 1. That's not bad at all.
When estimating how much access students will have to their teachers, some people like to look at what percentage of faculty members are full time. This is because part-time teachers may not have as much time to spend on campus as their full-time counterparts.
The full-time faculty percentage at Mountain Empire Community College is 42%. This is lower than the national average of 47%.
The freshmen retention rate tells us what percentage of first-year, full-time students choose to continue on to their sophomore year at a particular school. The rate at Mountain Empire Community College is 63%, which is about average when compared to the national rate of 68%.
During the 2017-2018 academic year, there were 2,253 undergraduates at MECC with 1,010 being full-time and 1,243 being part-time.
The net price is calculated by adding tuition, room, board and other costs and subtracting financial aid.Note that the net price is typically less than the published for a school. For more information on the sticker price of MECC, see our tuition and fees and room and board pages.
See which majors at Mountain Empire Community College make the most money.
Get more details about the location of Mountain Empire Community College.
Contact details for MECC are given below.
| Contact Details | |
|---|---|
| Address: | 3441 Mountain Empire Road, Big Stone Gap, VA 24219 |
| Phone: | 276-523-2400 |
| Website: | www.mecc.edu/ |
| Most Popular Majors | Bachelor’s Degrees | Average Salary of Graduates |
|---|---|---|
| Liberal Arts General Studies | 264 | NA |
| Allied Health Professions | 200 | NA |
| Practical Nursing & Nursing Assistants | 66 | NA |
| Business Administration & Management | 57 | NA |
| Nursing | 55 | NA |
| Construction | 54 | NA |
| Precision Metal Working | 32 | NA |
| Electronics Engineering Technology | 29 | NA |
| Environmental Control Technology | 28 | NA |
| Natural Resources Conservation | 28 | NA |
Online courses area a great option for busy, working students as well as for those who have scheduling conflicts and want to study on their own time. As time goes by, expect to see more and more online learning options become available.
In 2022-2023, 1,346 students took at least one online class at Mountain Empire Community College. This is a decrease from the 1,538 students who took online classes the previous year.
| Year | Took at Least One Online Class | Took All Classes Online |
|---|---|---|
| 2022-2023 | 1,346 | 536 |
| 2021-2022 | 1,538 | 790 |
| 2020-2021 | 1,701 | 835 |
| 2018-2019 | 1,323 | 490 |
Learn more about online learning at Mountain Empire Community College.
Footnotes
*The racial-ethnic minorities count is calculated by taking the total number of students and subtracting white students, international students, and students whose race/ethnicity was unknown. This number is then divided by the total number of students at the school to obtain the racial-ethnic minorities percentage.
References
More about our data sources and methodologies.