<p>What's the difference? I understand that private schools are the most selective and most expensive, but what's the difference between the other two? Do you even have to get accepted to pubic or community college, or can ANYONE go? Just curious... Thanks!</p>
<p>Most of the time if you live in a state you can get into the community college (with a GED or HS Diploma.) Public schools are fully fledged colleges and universities who recieve funding from the state, as opposed to private schools, who do not.</p>
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I understand that private schools are the most selective and most expensive
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<p>Neither of these statements are necessarily true. Many public schools are more selective than many private schools. Also, private schools give more aid than publics (generally) bringing the actual cost down quite a bit. In addition, if you're paying out of state tuition to a public school you could be paying pretty close to private school tuition. But yes, usually the initial price tag will look higher on a private.</p>
<p>edit: I don't think you understand the college system very well. I'd suggest you go over to wikipedia, where you can find a great deal of basic information that could help you understand better. Just search for US College Education or something along those lines.</p>
<p>"I understand that private schools are the most selective and most expensive"</p>
<p>I dont know where you got these two statements at. While its probably true that privates are more expensive than their public counterparts, it is not always true. Secondly, many many publics are more selective than many many privates. Look at US News' selectivity ranking. I believe there are at least 7 publics in the top 30, including 3 UC schools (UC Berkeley, UCLA, UCSD), Virginia, Michigan, W&M, UNC, ect. There are litterely hundreds of private schools that are not nearly as selective as many publics. if you are only referring to Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Princeton, and the next 5 or 10 privates as private schools, then yes they are more selective than their top public counterparts. But those are only a select few of private schools, probably making up less than 1% of total privates in the US. There are many privates than are ranked very low if even ranked, whose student bodies do not compare to many of the publics.</p>
<p>In many cases, community colleges can be a very good alternative to some of the state universities for the first two years. In California, the academics are set up to satisfy the same requirements as the U. of California, and you can take your introductory courses there and go right into your Junior year at any of the public state universities. The tuition is much cheaper, and you have the option of living at home--so it can be a very good alternative to those where cost is a factor. I went to UC Davis all four years, but I took a few courses at the community college during Summer, and they were every bit as challenging as the ones at the UC, and there were far fewer students in the class, and much more contact with the professor--I felt like I learned a lot. My husbanc went to the community college for his first two years, and transferred into the engineering program at UCD for his last two years. Many of the professors love the community college atmosphere, and I have found them to be top-notch. I have lived in several areas of the country, and the community college system in California is really great.</p>