The value of education, we believe, is something that really can’t be measured.

How can you assign value to things like responsibility, maturity and reliability — all traits that, hopefully, increase as part of a student’s education?

Inevitably, there are those who seek to assign value to an education, among them U.S. Department of Education officials. In a study released this month, those officials looked at several community colleges in Michigan and stacked them against each other in various categories. They looked at things like student enrollment, graduation rates, the cost of tuition, and faculty/student ratios.

And, when the dust settled, Alpena Community College came out very well in the comparisons.

“It represents a snapshot of a community college that is focused on the right things, student success, and is delivering value to the benefit of the students,” ACC President Don MacMaster said in a news story this week.

Again, while we choose not to get too focused on those numbers, we will congratulate college officials for the strong showing.

What the study does confirm for us is something we have contended all along — if students want a solid, affordable and worthwhile educational and potentially life-changing experience, ACC is a great place to attend.

(THE ALPENA NEWS)