Technical Community College vs. Trade School
A challenge you might encounter on occasion is deciding which symbol will most accurately represent a structure, especially if that structure has characteristics of more than one feature type. This often happens with schools since we have many different school categories, and sometimes they just don’t fit cleanly within those categories.
One school type which can fall into this gray area is the technical community college, which could be mistaken for a trade school. The Central Louisiana Technical Community College (CLTCC) website for example, indicates that vocational and technical careers heavily dominate their program offerings. So then should these campuses be marked as technical / trade schools? Or colleges / universities?
There were already some points in the TNMCorps map editor representing CLTCC’s campuses that were categorized as trade schools. With workforce training programs such as welding and heavy equipment operating, it has to be a trade school, right?? Not so fast… You know the saying, “Don’t judge a book by its cover”? The same can be said of some of the structures that we map.
On the surface, CLTCC appears to be a trade school, and some cursory research seems to support that notion. But after digging a little more, we discovered that CLTCC also offers associates degrees. As you may recall from our Structures List, a college / university is defined as “an institution of higher learning that grants a degree at the completion of a course of studies.” In addition to technical diplomas and certificates, CLTCC also offers associates degrees of science and applied science, which render this institution a “junior college.”
Ok, so what’s a junior college? The US Census Bureau defines junior colleges as “establishments primarily engaged in furnishing academic, or academic and technical, courses and granting associate's degrees, certificates, or diplomas below the baccalaureate level” (US Census Bureau, 2022).
Since CLTCC qualifies as a junior college that offers technical vocational courses and associates degrees, their campuses should be labeled with college / university points.
To boil it down: If a career or technical college offers associates degrees or higher, then it should be labeled as a college / university. If it offers technical certificates or diplomas but does not offer associates degrees or higher, then it should be labeled as a technical / trade school.
Check out our school type decision tree for more guidance on properly labeling other types of schools, and this section of the User Guide for instructions on changing symbols.
And if you ever get really stuck and just aren’t sure which category to group a feature under, we’re happy to assist. Just check out our Q&A page or send us a message at nationalmapcorps@usgs.gov.
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