<p>Is it true that community colleges provide lower equality of education than universities?
Is it because most community colleges have lower expectations in recruiting new students?
Why are their cost cheaper than university?
I am an International student struggling for these answers. Please help.
Thanks</p>
<p>Why are their cost cheaper than university?
Unlike universities, CCs receive a good percentage of their funding from local county income taxes. I'm sure there are other reasons, but local income taxes were the first to come to mind.</p>
<p>Is it true that community colleges provide lower equality of education than universities?
I attended a CC and 4-year concurrently and I found the classes to be pretty comparable in terms of difficulty and how much I learned. The main difference is that my CC classes usually had more homework than my 4-year classes.</p>
<p>Community colleges often make a lot of sense for international students. They offer a lot of ESL courses and remedial reading/writing courses, so you can improve your English skills. They are very inexpensive compared to 4 year universities, even if you have to pay a special international student fee. And, if you earn good grades, you may have the opportunity to transfer to a good (or even great) 4 year university.</p>
<p>Many international students attend California community colleges and then transfer to four year UC or CSU universities. It is a relatively inexpensive way to get a degree in the United States.</p>
<p>It really matters on the state you are in.</p>
<p>A lot of Chinese/Koreans kids in California have been going to community colleges in California with the hopes of getting into UC Berkeley, UCLA, USC, and UCSD.</p>
<p>I know several Chinese kids who turned down UC Riverside and even UC Davis and UC Irvine to attend community colleges with the hopes of transferring into UCLA.</p>
<p>Community colleges (at least in California) are becoming a lot more competitive because unlike community colleges in other states, the ones in California even there are filled with Chinese/Korean kids who aspire to go to UCLA/Berkeley/USC/UCSD. Many of the Chinese/Koreans at junior colleges had 3.5 GPAs and SAT scores in the 1300s...but they still couldn't get into UCLA so they go to Santa Monica College or Pasadena City College with the hopes of getting into UCLA/USC.</p>
<p>It's becoming a common trend now in California.</p>
<p>Community colleges often are open enrollment. That means that if you have graduated high school, or passed the GED (high school equivalency exam), or are over a certain age, you can enroll in the classes. You may have to take placement tests to determine which classes you can enroll in, but you do not have to take an SAT or ACT exam. You do not have to have a specific grade point average for your high school diploma. In other words, it is pretty easy to get into a community college if you are a local student.</p>
<p>The coursework itself is usually is no easier than at an in-state public university. This means that although it is "easy to get in", it is not necessarily "easy to finish". One particular advantage of the community college is that the classes are usually smaller (you might have 150 in a psychology lecture course at the state university but only 25 in the same course at the community college), so it is easier to get personal attention from your instructors.</p>
<p>I have taken undergraduate courses at large public universities, small liberal arts colleges, selective colleges, non-selective colleges, and at community colleges. I've had good instructors everywhere. I've had not-so-good instructors everywhere. A lot of it seems to me to be plain dumb luck.</p>
<p>If you are considering the community college route, be sure to meet regularly with your advisor at that campus so that your courses are planned well to allow you to transfer conveniently to the college or university where you would like to finish your degree.</p>
<p>Here is a link where you can find all of the community colleges in the US:
U.S</a>. Community Colleges, by State</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>Hi. I need some information on CCs for a student. I really don’t know anything about them, so I’m turning here for help. </p>
<p>Are there classes offered that one couldn’t pass in h.s.? Like some math courses – to eventually get into a great 4 yr? Student needs to make up some of those to get into dream school. Also, we don’t quite understand what getting an associate degree means to the 4 yr college that one would transfer to. Does it give you the edge over high school kids because you’re more knowledgable about the major?</p>
<p>You won’t be competing with freshman for space, just other transfers. Most colleges accept transfers from both 2-year and 4-year colleges, and admit about half of their transfers from one and half from the other. This even applies to top-tier colleges like Stanford and Cal Tech.</p>
<p>As for math, at my school they offer up to Linear Algebra. In contrast, the highest offered in high school was AP Calc BC (equivalent to Calc II or III, not sure which)</p>
<p>In many states, the community colleges have articulation agreements with the 4-yr colleges that give students with Associates degrees preferred enrollment, or acknowledgment that those students have completed their distribution requirements for a Bachelors degree.</p>
<p>Also, earning an Associates degree with good grades tells admission personnel that the student has demonstrated that he/she succeeds at taking college-level coursework. Just because a student performed well in High School does not necessarily guarantee that they will do well in college.</p>
<p>“Are there classes offered that one couldn’t pass in h.s.?”</p>
<p>When students enroll, most community colleges will require that the student take a series of placement exams (the most commonly used set is the “Accuplacer”). Students will be placed into college level or “developmental” courses based on the exam results. Developmental courses are HS level (or even lower) and do not carry college credit. Here’s a link to my local community college’s testing information:
[Assessment</a> & Testing - Montgomery College, MD - Montgomery College, MD](<a href=“http://www.montgomerycollege.edu/Departments/AssessCtr/assessment-placement.html]Assessment”>http://www.montgomerycollege.edu/Departments/AssessCtr/assessment-placement.html)</p>
<p>Whether or not it is necessary, or even advisable, for an individual student to complete an Associate’s degree will depend on that student’s goals. It is important for students to work closely with their advisors/counselors so that they can determine what is best for them.</p>
<p>MYTH!! I’m sure it varies depending on what classes you’re taking, but I wouldn’t say it’s a “lower grade education” at all. I’ve had instructors with degrees (PhD’s too) from Berkeley, Stanford, Chicago, NYU, Yale, etc. Some teachers teach at so called “real” college AND community college. Furthermore, a lot of comm colleges have honors programs with additional requirements if “regular” is too easy for you.</p>
<p>Idk I really think it depends on the school. I mean a community college in NYC is a perfect example of how you can’t believe the stereotype that all community colleges are lower grade. Borough of Manhattan Community College is cheaper than Fordham, NYU, or Columbia and in the inner city sometimes ppl can’t afford to pay the price of living and get an expensive education so you might have a genius and a fool sitting together in a class being taught by an amazing professor. lol</p>
<p>However the CCs in my area are different. The are not many prestigious/expensive schools in my area so the difference between someone who went to Wilkes University or LCCC is just drive, motivation, and grades. The kids who go to CCs around here are legitimatly unfocused and have little concern about the quality of thier education. I’ve had the oppurtunity to meet some of these professors though dual enrollment. I had one professor from Amherst at a CC and she just gave up. The kids didn’t care and truley there was just no way to make them.</p>
<p>The community colleges in my state vary quite a bit with regards to quality. The one near us has a nursing program that is one of the top 10 nursing programs in my state.</p>
<p>A lot of the people will put down community college education, but I don’t think they know what they are talking about. Everyone I know who has gone from a community college to a 4-year college (or visa versa) has said that the education was comparable. This includes people who have studied at the best colleges in the country.</p>
<p>If you think about it, it is logical that community colleges are just as good. CCs are preparing students to go on to 4-years. If CCs weren’t at the same level they could not do that. CC students would be failing out of 4-years because they would be unprepared. Studies show, however, that CC transfers perform better at 4-years than first-year students. So the CCs must be doing a good job.</p>
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<p>Yes, you can take “developmental” courses to prepare you for college level courses. At my community college at least half of the math sections are developmental. The developmental courses will be on your transcript, but they don’t transfer. I think most 4-year institutions don’t even consider them when calculating your transfer GPA. </p>
<p>In general an associates degree doesn’t matter to the school you are transferring. The possible exception is that if the school has an agreement with your CC they may take the associates as fulfillment of their lower-division core requirements. There are some studies that show that people with associates degrees make more than people without them. But that might be because nurses, paralegals, and radiology techs are pulling up the average. I’m not sure having an associates degree outside of those fields is really useful. I just received an associate of science (entirely by accident) so I hope I am wrong!</p>
<p>I’m glad to see some great responses here! 
I won’t repeat what others have said too much…</p>
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<p>Lower quality than, say, Princeton? I don’t think anyone would disagree with someone saying that. But honestly, the education you’ll get will probably be much better than what you’d find at lower-tier four-year colleges. </p>
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<p>It’s important to remember that most community colleges don’t really “recruit.” CCs were developed around the idea of open enrollment for local students, so although they certainly have marketing and attend college fairs, they’re really not “recruiting” in the traditional sense. They will take any students who meet the qualifications and apply.</p>
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<p>A lot of different reasons. They are publicly funded, most of them don’t have to spend money on things like dormitories and extensive student programming, they usually don’t require PhDs (meaning their faculty, while still very good, aren’t looking for the same high pay that four-year faculty seek), they have smaller campuses and therefore less infrastructure to maintain…they really just run on a different “business” model and save that way.</p>
<p>Regarding the discussion of whether an Associate’s degree is useful, I would argue yes. A lot of transfer colleges and scholarship programs specifically request or require that you have it, so you need to be aware of that.</p>
<p>In my experience: My CC college education was worse than my High School education. My English 1102 class covered less in the entire span of the class than my AP Lit class covered in a week.</p>
<p>In my area cc are known to be a piece of cake. many kid opt not to take AP classes, but instead enroll in the local cc equivalent. ALL of them talk of how it’s even easier than our regular classes. I think it depends where you live.</p>
<p>I know this kid who made a mistake of enrolling in AP Lit and the CC equivalent, she always brakes down to us how the classes are over there. She dropped AP lit and decided to transfer her CC english credit to her school. She said they were teaching them step by step how to write essays. That is what we did in honors freshman class.</p>
<p>CC might be excellent in CA and NY and a few other places (I really do believe that they are great in CA and NY), but seriously don’t draw the general conclusion that it’s the same every where.</p>
<p>I have taken some 12 dual enrollment classes in California. Most have been jokes - - no homework, open note tests. One was tough and had a professor who was nearly impossible.</p>
<p>I am SO thankful that my time taking dual enrollment classes is near an end.</p>
<p>The CC classes that are comparable to college intro courses can be easier than AP classes. S found this when he dual-enrolled his senior year in several CC English classes after taking both AP composition classes as a sophomore and junior in high school. He did this because we insisted that he have English all four years in high school. However, he still enjoyed both the courses and the opportunity to discuss the reading material in class with fellow students and the professors. Just because the courses didn’t have as much work as the AP level classes did not lessen their value.</p>
<p>Likewise, he was able to pursue other post AP-level interests at the CC in courses that just don’t exist at the high school level. </p>
<p>One more thing we observed at least with our CC: unlike high school, students who attend CC for the most part want to be there and are paying to be there. While some were certainly there for remedial classes, and others were pursuing AA’s for transfer to four year institutes or career opportunities, the fact that they wanted and were paying to be there made a difference in the classroom morale and what was accomplished. </p>
<p>CC’s, especially good ones like ours is supposed to be (we’re in the SE), have some solid offerings. Doing the research to pick and choose the best of what they have has made the dual-enrollment/CC experience a positive for my S.</p>
<p>I think PlantMom has a good point. The intro level courses that high school students take are often not as intensive, but the 200-levels at my community college always had high school students running back home. Maybe the math and science courses were a little easier than in the other departments because they didn’t require as much discussion or theoretical work, but our humanities and social sciences courses seemed to kill high-schoolers because they just weren’t ready for that level of discussion and theory. Even in my 100-level Intro to Lit course, there were two high school students who dropped after the first exam, and they were exceptional in their (private) high school.</p>
<p>But again, as we’ve all said ad nauseum, it depends on the college.</p>