Hello everyone, I’ve been stuck with this problem for a few days now. I was accepted for Computer Engineering at UC Santa Cruz and am excited to go. However, due to my family’s financial situation, my parents have raised the topic of whether if it was a better choice to go to community college and then transferring to a UC, such as Irvine. Would it be a better choice to just stick with UC Santa Cruz and depend on financial aid/loans or go to a CC instead? Any thoughts would be appreciated (I’m stressing over it).
If you and your parents cannot afford to attend UCSC, then the CC to UC route via TAG is an excellent option. You and your parents are the only ones that make that decision in regards to your finances.
@theshyguy - What’s said above is correct however I do have some suggestions for the financial analysis.
The students I have known who TAG into the UCs usually take longer than 4 years to get out with a bachelors - generally 2 at the CC and then 2.5 or 3 at the UC since the CC classes you take for TAG are pretty specific for the transfer process and don’t always correlate to 2 years work towards your major, especially in engineering. Computer Science courses are really hard to get at our local CC and engineering curriculum is very specific. An extra year in school (and a year less of full-time work) can also be expensive. Maybe look at the costs of each path. I would do a 7 or 10 year forecast, do your due dilligence on the courses available at your CC vs those required to graduate with a CE degree and balance the student loan situation against the extended amount of time needed to get through / not work full-time. Possibly if you work while you go to school that will change things around - look at your options under both scenarios. You want to make a financially sound decision but you also want to be sure you’re looking at the big picture when you do so.
Also look at the transfer GPA ranges for UCI, so you have a clear sense of what kinds of grades you’ll need to get: https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/infocenter/transfers-major Don’t forget to figure in the opportunity cost of a year or so of lost wages (and lost retirement savings) in your early 20s if you choose the CC route, because CaMom13 is right that it will almost definitely take you longer that way. That is nothing to sneeze at. You might do a calculation whereby you pay your parents back for the UCSC costs out of your first three years of your career.
Is UCSC unaffordable, but CC->UC affordable?
Note that UCI CS is one of the more difficult CC->UC transfer paths, because UCI has lots of lower division courses for the CS major that are not available at CCs (e.g. http://web2.assist.org/web-assist/report.do?agreement=aa&reportPath=REPORT_2&reportScript=Rep2.pl&event=19&dir=2&sia=IRVINE&ria=UCI&ia=UCI&oia=IRVINE&aay=16-17&ay=16-17&dora=CS ). What it means is that it is likely that a student transferring from CC to UCI for CS will probably need to take an extra quarter or two taking “catch up” courses before moving on to upper division courses, likely delaying graduation by a quarter or two.
The need to take “catch up” courses after transfer is more common for majors with less commonly offered lower division requirements (e.g. CS, engineering majors), as opposed to those with more commonly offered lower division requirements (e.g. English, math, biology, physics, history, business). You can use http://www.assist.org to see how well your local CC covers the lower division courses for your major at various UCs and CSUs.
Another issue is that your gpa will at UC will consist mostly of the more difficult upper level courses. The gpa at the CC will usually not transfer. Do you have AP credits? Can you take some electives this summer at a Cc which can transfer to ucsc? You can save some money this way , or use them to reduce your semester load so that you can have time to work.
The cc transfer road is riddled with potholes, and for an engineering major, it may not be optimal in terms of money saved,as others have already mentioned. @ucbalumnus has it right by saying that this path is good for standard majors like bio etc.
Note that, for CS/CSE majors, some other UCs have fewer unique lower division courses not available at CCs, compared to UCI. If you choose to start at a CC, you may want to consider including those other UCs among your transfer targets.
Organize the financials, and then think about posting the details in the financial aid forum. Some of the parents there are very familiar with the CA public system and with CA financial aid. They will have useful ideas for you.
My daughter had changed her major at her CSU early in her freshman year to CS, but realized location is really important for internships and recruitment. She decided to transfer to a CC (as she found out that most transfer spots at UCs and more CS-oriented CSUs are reserved for CC students). But unfortunately, CS and other physical science courses are not a top priority at that CC she selected – the second closest as she had heard the same about the closest one – and possibly others.
So if considering the CC route, look at the current and any past schedule of classes for which classes they offer. For example, data structures was only offered in the fall semester, and had spaces for only 20 students. It took my daughter a couple of tries (and the second one was after keeping an eye on the openings when enough dropped the class the week before the semester started). If your student is considering applying as a transfer student to an university that requires the physics sequence, that could be problematic if not enough courses are offered (and remember, other majors such as engineering are competing for those spots).
At the CC my daughter attended, the first physics course was offered each semester and in summer session – two sections for 55 students each, but the corresponding lab was offered as a separate (and not dedicated to a particular section) course and there were only 80 total slots for 110 students taking the main course. My daughter ended up taking just the first course, and never took the lab, and that meant there were several colleges she couldn’t apply to. Her sophomore year took TWO years as that’s how long it took to her requirements in, even without finishing the physics sequence. It’s only if your student is lucky not to get a poor enrollment appt. (as what happened to the girl) and can get into the needed courses.
Thank you everyone for the responses, it is helping for my parents and I to agree on things. Just to add on more details, the college that I am most likely to attend if I take the CC route is De Anza College.
De Anza covers the lower division courses for UCSC computer engineering and computer science fairly well (but make sure that the needed courses are offered and have space available):
http://web2.assist.org/web-assist/report.do?agreement=aa&reportPath=REPORT_2&reportScript=Rep2.pl&event=19&dir=1&sia=DAC&ria=UCSC&ia=DAC&oia=UCSC&aay=16-17&ay=16-17&dora=CMPE
http://web2.assist.org/web-assist/report.do?agreement=aa&reportPath=REPORT_2&reportScript=Rep2.pl&event=19&dir=1&sia=DAC&ria=UCSC&ia=DAC&oia=UCSC&aay=16-17&ay=16-17&dora=CMPSBS
But leaves significant gaps for UCI computer engineering and computer science, which would require more “catch up” after transfer:
http://web2.assist.org/web-assist/report.do?agreement=aa&reportPath=REPORT_2&reportScript=Rep2.pl&event=19&dir=1&sia=DAC&ria=UCI&ia=DAC&oia=UCI&aay=16-17&ay=16-17&dora=ENGRCPE
http://web2.assist.org/web-assist/report.do?agreement=aa&reportPath=REPORT_2&reportScript=Rep2.pl&event=19&dir=1&sia=DAC&ria=UCI&ia=DAC&oia=UCI&aay=16-17&ay=16-17&dora=CS