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Middle-Class Families Increasingly Look to Community Colleges

nytimes.com

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Re: Middle-Class Families Increasingly Look to Community Colleges

#41

Post by gmays »

Community college worked well for me. 2 weeks after graduating high school I started taking a heavy workload at the local community college. I was able to complete the prerequisites by the following year and transfer to a local state university. I was lucky that both were within a 45min drive from my house.

The result was graduating college with a bachelor's degree 2.5 years after graduating high school. I lived at home for the the duration (rent free as long as I maintained a 3.5 GPA) so the full cost was only around $6,000.

This was in northern California (Modesto Junior College and Cal State Stanislaus) with a relatively low cost of living. I know the costs have increased since then (I went in the mid 2000's), but I assume it's still relatively affordable.

Re: Middle-Class Families Increasingly Look to Community Colleges

#42

Post by tonyedgecombe »

scarface74 wrote: post #35
h0p3 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try empathizing instead of merely sympathizing.

I was unable to "empathize" with people early in my career who were complaining about "crippling student loan debt" that were sitting right next to me, making the same amount I was when I went to an unknown state college and graduated with no debt. It especially makes no sense to me for a resident of GA to ever go to a private college when you can get free tuition via the HOPE scholarship to go to well known public s…

I don't know what it's like in the US but in the UK there is a relentless pressure on students to go to University and take on huge debts. There aren't many people at age 18 who have the ability to ignore what every adult around them is telling them and say no.

Re: Middle-Class Families Increasingly Look to Community Colleges

#43

Post by HarryHirsch »

scarface74 wrote: post #31
CuriouslyC wrote: post #16

I went to a community college and transferred to a prestigious public university. In my experience, if you find a good community college, the high volume classes tend to be better than they are at a big school. There are usually less than 50 students (vs up to 400), the teachers actually enjoy teaching, and the material is easy enough that the teachers understand it just as well as top tier professors. Honestly, Cali…

Why does the community college need to be "good"? Mostly you take classes there that have nothing to do with your major.

You also take foundation classes for your major. Compare an introductory physics lecture from MIT or Berkeley you find online to your average community college class. At community college you find people with insufficient understanding of algebra so if something like Ohms Law comes up you have them memorize all three forms. This is a problem, you can't teach for understanding.

As a student you find yourself in a situation like Feynman in Brazil. You sit in class and have to teach yourself the material again properly yourself.

Re: Middle-Class Families Increasingly Look to Community Colleges

#45

Post by no_wizard »

CuriouslyC wrote: post #16

I went to a community college and transferred to a prestigious public university. In my experience, if you find a good community college, the high volume classes tend to be better than they are at a big school. There are usually less than 50 students (vs up to 400), the teachers actually enjoy teaching, and the material is easy enough that the teachers understand it just as well as top tier professors. Honestly, Cali…

When I lived in Minnesota about 10 yrs ago this was the case there too and as far as I am aware it still is

Little State Promo: Minnesota has one of the best collegiate systems in the US from community to top tier university in case anyone didn’t know :)

Re: Middle-Class Families Increasingly Look to Community Colleges

#46

Post by nikhizzle »

arenaninja wrote: post #24

For me community college was the pathway to the middle class. I went to several community colleges in the Los Angeles area (due to affordability, proximity, availability of classes) and then transferred to the UC system. I had 0 support besides the Cal Grant/Pell grant and my part time job My kids will be strongly urged to go to community college, and I recommend it to everyone I'm close to. I may have missed out on…

So for me, the college friendships that have persevered the most in to my late 30s were those made in community college. This is from 2 years spent in community college, 2 years at a 4-year, and then 2 1/2 years in an unfinished doctorate.

Re: Middle-Class Families Increasingly Look to Community Colleges

#47

Post by jdavis703 »

maxerickson wrote: post #30
CuriouslyC wrote: post #16

I went to a community college and transferred to a prestigious public university. In my experience, if you find a good community college, the high volume classes tend to be better than they are at a big school. There are usually less than 50 students (vs up to 400), the teachers actually enjoy teaching, and the material is easy enough that the teachers understand it just as well as top tier professors. Honestly, Cali…

Every community college system will seek to make their credits as transferable as possible, it makes the schools vastly more attractive. The 4 year places generally impose limits on how many credits they will recognize from a transfer, for the obvious reasons, they want their cut and they don't want to be a rubber stamp for some other program.

It also helps to be in a state that values their junior colleges. In Virgina the community college systems have a standardized set of classes, and deals with mant state universities where virtually all the credits transfer over. I only had one class I had to take over again, and looking back the version taught at my junior college really was quite different.

Re: Middle-Class Families Increasingly Look to Community Colleges

#48

Post by jdavis703 »

internetman55 wrote: post #7

That's what I did and it was lit. Worked at kmart for a year then pretty much paid my tuition out of savings. Stood way out in all my classes. Got transfer scholarship to my state flagship. If money isn't an issue I guess four years could be better, but it seems pretty good to use CCs.

Maybe you're opposed to using government aid which is fine; but if you had to work to pay for community college you probably could've qualified for Pell Grants that would have paid for everything since community college is so cheap.

Re: Middle-Class Families Increasingly Look to Community Colleges

#49

Post by your-nanny »

Community college gave me transfer agreement to UC Davis. I went to UCLA instead, though I think I would have happier at Davis.

Anyway, at UCLA, all the most motivated students went to community college first (the ones in the department undergrad club, the one in honors research programs, the ones who eventually got phds)

Re: Middle-Class Families Increasingly Look to Community Colleges

#50

Post by bogomipz »

arenaninja wrote: post #24

For me community college was the pathway to the middle class. I went to several community colleges in the Los Angeles area (due to affordability, proximity, availability of classes) and then transferred to the UC system. I had 0 support besides the Cal Grant/Pell grant and my part time job My kids will be strongly urged to go to community college, and I recommend it to everyone I'm close to. I may have missed out on…

>"I had about $13k loan debt at the end of 4 years, and I paid that off 2 years later even though it took me 9 months to land a job (because I didn't study CS and went for web development)"

That's not too bad at all. Can I ask how long ago was this?

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