GumbyMom is the voice of authority for California public college admissions. You should carefully evaluate your CSU options as laid out above, and if those don’t fit with your major/career/location desires, then I think community college is an excellent choice. One thing you could consider: If you have your eye on a particular CSU or UC school (e.g. SDSU or UCSB) and if you’re planning to work and move out anyway while you attend community college, then you could move to attend the local community college near where you want to end up anyway (e.g. SD Mesa College for SDSU, SB City College for UCSB).