@snarlatron @NASA2014 I don’t intend to demean people who attend a community college or a CTCL and have achieved what they wanted in their respective fields, and if that seemed to be my point then I should’ve phrased it better.
I’m merely saying that, statistically, such people are outliers. When one compares a CTCL with a 80% graduation rate (for instance, Ursinus) to a school like the University of Michigan, with a 90% graduation rate, there is a noticeable difference in the odds of a student getting a degree out of their time at the college. Moreover, when a typical philosophy major from the U of M earns more than an average student from Ursinus, even if that student has majored in lucrative fields like computer science, I see forces at work beyond the students’ respective abilites: the alumni network and the gap in the schools’ name recognition are foremost among them.
As for CC’s: at a perfectly average community college, about 40% of students enrolled earn a degree at a 2-year or 4-year institution within 6 years. A quarter don’t return for their second semester. This doesn’t mean you can’t succeed at a CC. It does mean the odds are against it.
If I implied that a student at a CC or a CTCL can’t achieve what he/she wants in life, that certainly wasn’t my intent. My point is merely that the odds they face will be longer than those of your run-of-the-mill freshman at a top 20 or top 50 college. On average, although I don’t know that many employers would share this view, I actually believe successful graduates of a CC will actually be a more capable bunch, because it’s much easier to succeed by coasting along at a top school than at a CC.
See: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2005/03/the-truth-about-harvard/303726/ for one account illustrating that final point.