Texas Tech Petroleum Engineering vs Community College?

<p>I have already been accepted to Texas Tech. Though it certainly is not the most prestigious engineering school in the state of Texas, it does have a pretty good reputation as far as petroleum engineering goes. This upcoming Fall they will be opening their new petroleum engineering building (cost: $35mil and designed to adhere to the oil industries new standards, etc....) </p>

<p>As far as I know, it's a great opportunity. However, I do not have the money. Family income below $25k for sure and my income was like $7.5k. Already filed FAFSA, just need to submit corrections in a few weeks when I can retrieve my stuff with the retrieval tool. </p>

<p><strong>Despite being accepted last week, I had completely disregarded the idea of attending a university my first two years, but attending a community college rather. I thought it would be great to avoid debt, but then again engineering majors pay the highest, so if I successfully complete my Bachelors, debt should hopefully not be a huge problem.</strong></p>

<p>What do you guys think? I have not applied for scholarships.... Went from top 22% to top 15% this first semester of senior year, so despite my rank improvement, it's not great. ACT, totally flopped when I needed to p*ss during the entire math section...</p>

<p><strong>Enough rambling. I also plan on taking 2 classes during the summer at community college, as well as doing the same next year.. Of course, that is if I do decide to go.</strong></p>

<p><strong>So what kind of loans do I take out. Failure is far from an option for me. Is it likely that I will run out of loans to take during college, despite maintaining good grades?</strong></p>

<p>My friends say to go to university.. Community college is a waste of time and I will never transfer, etc... What is your guys input?</p>

<p>Target university: Texas Tech
Target transfer universities (that means community college 1st): UT, Texas Tech, A&M (in that order)</p>

<p>I already posted on your other thread in the college selection forum. You can’t afford Tech. It costs $23K/year and you can only borrow $5.5K as a freshman. And your parents won’t be able to cosign loans with that income.</p>

<p>Go to the community college that you plan to attend, and have a nice long visit with the Transfer Advisor. That person will be able to tell you exactly what you need to do in order to be ready to transfer to Texas Tech.</p>

Definitely Go to a Community college. I went to Blinn College in Bryan, What a great school, all my professors are fantastic, and willing to help you at any time. To be honest, Community college’s education quality is way better than University. Since University is research oriented, they want professors who can conduct profitable research but don’t care about how good they teach. I just transferred into tech this semester, and I am really disappointed. My thermo and statics prof hardly lecture, students have to self teach… Ok, Enough of complaining here.

My advise is, go to community college and get your basics knock out of the way then transfer to 4 yrs institute. You basically learn the same things in the first 1-2 years anyway. Why spend extra money to go to university.