For reasons other than “because they’re cheaper?” Did you ever hear the reaction of “oh, you’re going community college? I thought you were smart” or “I guess he/she doesn’t want to try too hard” from friends and family? Are they really lacking in value or are they just undervalued?
Absolutely undervalued. Community college is a wonderful option for so many students, especially the bright ones who didn’t perform well in high school to get into top schools. I have friends who went to CC (after being 2.5-3.8 students in high school) go onto Berkeley, UCLA, and many other top schools. There is so much stigma but I don’t understand why, plenty of motivated students go there. Hugely undervalued.
Well it is cheaper, and that’s reason enough. Unfortunately the amount of students applying to 4 years has increased so much in last few years the competition is ridiculous and your average 4.0 (unweighted), AP, dual enrolled (at the local CC) varsity athlete isn’t getting the scholarship money that may be needed to afford the 4 year college. The only draw back is how over crowded the CC’s are only to get worse (at least in CA). So it is actually on the list of options for my S18! And as a side note, of the 4 classes he’s taken during high school all but 1 of his college professors have been amazing and the classes were great.
It’s the path I took.
I’m one of 5 kids. My parents said they would pay, as long as we all started off at Community College.
My diploma, states the name of the University that awarded me my Bachelor’s.
I think I got a great education. And we saved so much money!!!
General education classes at universities costs 3-4 times as much as a community college, with no additional benefit. They’re just the same generic classes. When you graduate, you get a degree. Employers won’t care if you went to a community college for your first 2 years.
You definitely save a lot of money going to a community college for the first two years. But every family circumtances are different. We’re from CA and would consider CCC if our kids were not accepted directly into their primary majors (Engineering). The UCs STEM majors are impacted so students are getting accepted as undeclared or pre-major. This means you are not guarantee a spot in our case in the College of Engineering. You have to complete all your pre-requisites at the UC you got accepted as undeclared (pay full tuition) then reapply in approximately two years through a highly competitive process (no guarantees). In this situation, I would say CCC would be a good option. Fortunately, our S was accepted directly into a UC Engineering School. He’s a sophomore this year and really enjoying his time in college so far. He was able to take engineering classes in his 1st year and got assigned a mentor (fourth year engineering student). Involved in several clubs and events relating to his field of study, build important connections and made new friends who are currently his roommates (off campus housing). He also got hired for a research position at the University. So there are benefits to going straight into a four-year university from HS but it depends on your family situation. We know several people who have successful careers started out at a CCC.
It really depends on the “cheaper” front.
Here are some situations where CC’s don’t make sense:
If you’ve got stats to get merit at your flaghip, you shouldn’t go to CC, because merit aid is given to freshmen and transfers get lousy aid. (Look for the thread “did I lose tens of thousands of dollars?” by a student with a 32 ACT who went to CC and thus forfeited a full tuition scholarship and thus ended up full pay at this flagship for his last two years).
In some states with tuition coverage for some incomes/stats (Excelsior in NYS, Bright Futures in Florida, Cal Grants in California, Zell Miller in GA…) it doesn’t save any money on tuition regardless of where you go. So if you have a commutable 4-year you’d be in the same situation financially regardless of costs.
It can be a downside because in many states CC’s don’t offer Engineering pre-reqs.
Med Schools won’t accept premed pre-reqs taken at a CC (there may be an exception in California for California CC’s and California med schools).
In some states, attending a community college doesn’t automatically lead to a state flagship; in fact, going to a community college would mean not transferring a lot of classes and having to retake a lot of credits because the flagship doesn’t accept many community college credits.
Some CC’s are mostly dedicated to remedial and career education with few general education classes and may not be appropriate for kids who were in AP or IB classes (for instance, at a place where I lived, the CC had lots of Intermediate Algebra, Geometry, Trigonometry, College Algebra, Basic statistics classes… but only one section of Calculus 1, in the Spring. So a student who’d completed AP Calculus AB had no math class to take.)
So, it really depends on the situation.
How about you just answer, “Duh, I can save $XXXXX each year over what those first two years would cost at BigU, and still finish there in two more years after my automatic transfer with the articulation agreement for my major. I think that show just exactly how smart I am.”
I would have to research further to know for sure, but I’m fairly certain that in my state, students don’t lose anything financially as long as they remain within the state system. All our higher ed institutions are under the same umbrella.
I know that our local cc has excellent faculty. An Honors program is offered with free tuition and “seamless” integration with the Honors programs at the State U’s. The cc Honors program offers close mentoring with great faculty and of course a like-minded ambitious student cohort.
There are many stories of graduates of our cc going on to great programs and careers. There are several 4-year programs that can be completed on the cc campus (and not just online programs) and/or that have coordinated admission to the Jr/Sr years at State U.
So the advantages for our cc would be low cost, not having a huge move/adjustment, not much chance of getting lost in the crowd or falling in the cracks, accessible personalized mentoring. Our cc even has dorms for students from outlying areas.
I would say that generally speaking, if you remove cost from the equation, the advantage of starting at cc would be for students who have issues or concerns about major life changes, distance from home, maturity, confidence, etc., and maybe size of classes, because I know our cc doesn’t have enough Intro Biology students, for instance, to fill a large lecture hall like would happen at State U.
I would say for a student with their eye on a private college they are better off reaching for that from the get-go although some prestigious colleges now target cc graduates for special scholarships.