Salt Lake Community College finds itself in a whole new realm as it reached a fourth-place ranking among the country's associate degree-granting institutions.

"This puts us in a place where the only schools in front of us are these mega colleges on the East Coast," said SLCC spokesman Joy Tlou. In terms of head count, retention levels, student persistence and efficient use of public money, he said the school is "outperforming our peers."

Community College Week published its annual list of the top 100 associate degree producers in the country using numbers collected by the National Center for Education Statistics through the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data Set completions survey. It said that degree production is one of the most useful ways to determine a community college's contribution to society.

"We rank institutions not to indicate who is doing a better job, but rather to recognize the efforts of hundreds of thousands of faculty, staff and administrators who dedicate themselves to educating an increasingly diverse population of students," according to the publication.

The top 100 listings include schools that have awarded the largest number of associate degrees and certificates. These include community colleges, other two-year institutions, one-year and 18-month institutions, and four-year colleges and universities.

Diversity on the national community college scene has shown marked improvement, but SLCC topped the list in the number of associate degrees conferred to non-minority students. White students account for 84 percent of the school's degree recipients last year.

SLCC doesn't even place for degrees awarded to African-American or Hispanic students, but presented the 85th most degrees to Asian-American students and was in the top 65 for American Indian graduates. College of Eastern Utah was 46th on the same list, graduating 42 American Indian students.

"Even though we're ranked low in these areas, I think SLCC is coming around," said Sione Ata Siulula, who recently earned an associate degree from SLCC. He said he felt the school was making concentrated efforts to accommodate minority students, "helping them to make their culture and identity known in the community and on campus."

Less-expensive credits and smaller class sizes enticed Siulula, a former student body officer, to attend SLCC. He said he liked having teachers who knew his name and "actually cared about my success at school."

"I don't see any difference for a graduate of a four-year school who went there all four years or who started at a community college, except one paid less and got a great education at the same time," he said.