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Welcome to Frontier Community College!
At Frontier, education is our passion, helping is our primary mission, and student learning is how we measure our success. We strive to meet the educational goals of every student and pride ourselves on providing exceptional customer service. We understand the needs of today’s learners and work effortlessly to help our students overcome any barriers to success.
Frontier is one of four educational institutions that comprise Illinois Eastern Community Colleges (IECC), and it has a very unique history. Prior to being an established college, IECC personnel were tasked with starting a small facility in Fairfield to provide off-campus educational opportunities to residents across Clay, Edwards, Jasper, Lawrence, and Wayne Counties. Classes were taught in high schools, churches, and various public facilities so that residents could complete them in their hometown. Two years later, the IECC Board of Trustees commissioned the facility as a “college beyond walls”. Today, the FCC campus is spread across 55 acres with ten buildings, and it continues to serve the five counties with off-campus instruction. You can visit our History page to learn more about our institution as a whole.
As we continue to grow the campus and expand our programmatic offerings, we keep in the forefront our rather humble beginnings, and we will continue to remain true to the original charge of providing off-campus classes to the communities of the IECC district. These classes, coupled with our face-to-face and hybrid offerings on campus, allow our students flexibility in setting up their semester course schedules. We will continue to research innovative ways for students to complete classes while continuing their other life activities.
It is our primary aim to prepare our students for entry-level employment in their chosen program of study. To that end, Frontier is an established leader within higher education. In 2012, FCC was recognized as one of 18 colleges nationwide to achieve a 100% overall graduation and transfer performance rating. Only fifteen of the 1,717 two-year colleges nationwide earned this ranking. More recently (Spring 2017), FCC was ranked as the #1 community college in the State of Illinois by bestcolleges.com. We have also earned recognition from the Aspen Institute as a Top 150 Institution (2019 & 2021 award years). We're proud of our heritage, but we are even more pleased for being recognized as a leader in providing exceptional learning experiences for our students at a very affordable cost!
Whatever your educational needs are, we are here to assist you. If your desire is to obtain a high school credential, earn a certificate or degree in a career program, complete classes to transfer to another institution, or simply to participate in a community course, we are here to help you! Be sure to stop by our campus or give us a call. At Frontier, we strive to be your college of choice.
Sincerely,
Dr. Jay Edgren
President of Frontier Community College
