BATON ROUGE - More students than ever are either graduating from Louisiana's community and technical colleges or transferring from the two-year programs to traditional universities.

The Louisiana Community and Technical College System released data Tuesday that says 28,853 students graduated from one of its programs in the 2015-2016 school year. That's up 26 percent over last year, and 46 percent more than graduates from 2014.

However, LCTCS's definition of a graduate includes any student who got a degree or received an industry or professional credential. Some of the credential courses take less than a year to receive.

LCTCS President Monty Sullivan said 15,805 students transferred from one of its schools to a university, which included 1,708 to LSU, 1,843 to the University of Louisiana-Lafayette and 2,170 students transferred to Southeastern Louisiana University.