You mean right out of HS?
“I don’t understand the 4 year school or bust mentality.”
There are many reasons, but no need to get into it…let’s just assume the premise of the thread.
this comes from a variety of sources…
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school lunch table talk…classmates dissing CC route
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parent expectations
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student wanting the full college experience.
we have a nationwide student debt problem because people are going with “making their kid happy” rather than considering more affordable options.
While he may have the grades and the test scores to go away to school, with parents who are unwilling to pay, unless this student receives a free ride, where he can use his loan for travel and incidentals, it is highly unlikely that this student is going away to college.
@mom2collegekids I agree that the school chat thing is very real. My S20 doesn’t actually want to go away to school and wants to do CC with a hopeful transfer to a top UC school. But he was scared to even voice this for a while because the talk at his HS was that only “losers” go to CC. I’m incredibly proud that he is speaking up for what he wants.
I agree with @CU123. You’ve got the funds to pay for tuition, fees, etc if you stay in-state. Even if you find a tuition bargain somewhere else, room and board is very difficult to do on your own if you work part-time at Subway. Kids who go away to college usually have parents supporting them. If you go to an out of state university, you’re going to pay double or triple the tuition costs.
At the private school my kids went to in California, there were about 235 kids in the graduating class, and all but 5 listed that they were going to college after graduations (1 to jr pro hockey, 4 on missions). There were kids accepted to Ivies and all the other elite schools, ND, Duke, Vandy. More than 50 kids were going to California community colleges. Many of those students could have gone to other schools (academically and financially) but chose the community colleges.
Many went to the community college just across the highway from the HS and where the hs team played its football games. And yet, it wasn’t ‘just like high school.’
Really I find that extremely hard to believe, virtually have the same kids from the same highs school in the same classes at a CC and its not like high school. Nope.
There are over 17000 students going to Saddleback community college. Even if all 50 from the class went to Saddleback (and they didn’t as there are several CCs in southern Ca), and 50 went the year before, that would be 100 kids out of those 17,000 attending classes at the campus for 2 years.
Nothing like a high school with only 1000 students.
There are high schools in Denver that have more than 100 students taking classes at Metro State/Denver CC, and that SHOULD be just like high school but it isn’t because there are 30k+ students on that campus every day.
@CU123 and @twoinanddone , as a Californian who did the CC to four year route, I think there is less of a stigma about CC in California than on the East Coast, though I can’t speak for all the rest of the country.
I have no problem believing that even at a private high school in CA kids might choose to go to CC, but I suspect people here in NY might find that unbelievable.
Then those in NE can pay more if they don’t want the CC. OP was about where to find the price under $20k and NOT a CC. Other posters said there is nothing wrong with a CC.
I will admit that the California CC’s are pretty nice. Saddleback has a big football stadium, a theater with all the necessary costume rooms and art rooms for props, a nice campus set back on a tree covered hill. Looks like, umm, a college.
Each of the big universities in FL has a community college close by. Students can cross enroll and many share dorms and activities with the university. Florida universities are pretty cheap, but the cc’s are even cheaper. A student with a 1000 SAT and a 3.0 gpa are unlikely to get into the university, but may get into the CC associated with the university, all for under $15k.