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A twenty-year professor on starting college this fall: Don’t

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Re: A twenty-year professor on starting college this fall: Don’t

#61

Post by netsharc »

wikibob wrote: post #21
frankbreetz wrote: post #18

As a millennial college graduate, my number one piece of advice to college bound high schoolers is do the first two years at community college. The debt is not worth the experience. Most people spend the first two years figuring stuff out, community college is a great place to do that. I didn't even know this was an option until after college and I feel failed by my high school college advisors. Unless you are very c…

Disagree. Graduation rates are drastically lower from community colleges. There is vastly less academic support available. The people around you will be vastly less ambitious. This will rub off on you. Yes 4 year university is now overpriced in America. But if you can, go to a 4 year university. Yes maybe go to an in-state university instead of out of state if that is cheaper, or go where you get the best financial a…

As a EUian: look overseas. Many universities in Europe offer programs in English. It'll be an even mind-broadening experience, and it's significantly more affordable (I'll take this link from 2018 as a baseline: https://www.topuniversities.com/student-info/student-finance... ).

Re: A twenty-year professor on starting college this fall: Don’t

#62

Post by briandear »

wikibob wrote: post #21
frankbreetz wrote: post #18

As a millennial college graduate, my number one piece of advice to college bound high schoolers is do the first two years at community college. The debt is not worth the experience. Most people spend the first two years figuring stuff out, community college is a great place to do that. I didn't even know this was an option until after college and I feel failed by my high school college advisors. Unless you are very c…

Disagree. Graduation rates are drastically lower from community colleges. There is vastly less academic support available. The people around you will be vastly less ambitious. This will rub off on you. Yes 4 year university is now overpriced in America. But if you can, go to a 4 year university. Yes maybe go to an in-state university instead of out of state if that is cheaper, or go where you get the best financial a…

> The people around you will be vastly less ambitious. This will rub off on you.

Most community college people I have encountered are extremely ambitious — they are working full time while busting ass to achieve in school. The myth that community college is a bastion of the academically weak is wrong. I saw plenty of people at my prestigious school with ambitions that centered around parties and getting laid.

Re: A twenty-year professor on starting college this fall: Don’t

#63

Post by frankbreetz »

lilt wrote: post #52
frankbreetz wrote: post #18

As a millennial college graduate, my number one piece of advice to college bound high schoolers is do the first two years at community college. The debt is not worth the experience. Most people spend the first two years figuring stuff out, community college is a great place to do that. I didn't even know this was an option until after college and I feel failed by my high school college advisors. Unless you are very c…

I don't think you read the article. It's telling people to defer a year because of coronavirus, not the usual college is not worth it schpeel. That being said, I disagree with your advice in two cases: 1) Most top schools offer free tuition if your family income is below a generous threshold (like $150k). If you can get into Stanford and meet this criteria, it's cheaper than your local community college. 2) If you ar…

I read the article and I am saying instead of deferring a year of college go to community college. You should do this regardless of the covid.

Re: A twenty-year professor on starting college this fall: Don’t

#64

Post by intrepidhero »

briandear wrote: post #62
wikibob wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagree. Graduation rates are drastically lower from community colleges. There is vastly less academic support available. The people around you will be vastly less ambitious. This will rub off on you. Yes 4 year university is now overpriced in America. But if you can, go to a 4 year university. Yes maybe go to an in-state university instead of out of state if that is cheaper, or go where you get the best financial a…

> The people around you will be vastly less ambitious. This will rub off on you. Most community college people I have encountered are extremely ambitious — they are working full time while busting ass to achieve in school. The myth that community college is a bastion of the academically weak is wrong. I saw plenty of people at my prestigious school with ambitions that centered around parties and getting laid.

This was my experience as well. Pretty much everyone at CC was there to get an education, usually with specific employment goals. At University, it was more like 50%.

Re: A twenty-year professor on starting college this fall: Don’t

#65

Post by RandomBacon »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #54
frankbreetz wrote: post #18

As a millennial college graduate, my number one piece of advice to college bound high schoolers is do the first two years at community college. The debt is not worth the experience. Most people spend the first two years figuring stuff out, community college is a great place to do that. I didn't even know this was an option until after college and I feel failed by my high school college advisors. Unless you are very c…

If you have a scholarship, this advice may not be good. I think most scholarships expect you to start that fall; if you don't, you may lose the scholarship. (Some or all of them will accept a "gap year", but most won't accept you going to community college for two years and then trying to take the scholarship. Or at least, that's how I think it is. Your mileage may vary, so if you have a scholarship offer, check the…

Many scholarships are available to students while in college. Many people don't even apply to them because they don't know about them or care at that point.

Where I went, the Student Affairs office knew more about scholarships than the financial aid office.

Re: A twenty-year professor on starting college this fall: Don’t

#66

Post by antasvara »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #35
perl4ever wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly is the negative consequence you are envisioning from 2 years at community college and 2 years at your in-state 4-year school, vs. all four years at the latter? The typical alternative that people need to be guided away from is one of the for-profit "career" schools that doesn't have transferable credits and is way more expensive than community college.

The point is that a lot of people who go to community college who plan to finish at a state school don't actually make it to that state school. I agree with the parent comment, the people in community college will tend to be less ambitious and it will likely affect you. This is not a knock on community college folks, it's just different people have different priorities. I do think that there are many states with exce…

I'd love to see stats for this, as it seems to me that at the moment the majority of students that go to a community college were less likely to graduate regardless of plans to end up at a state school. It would be interesting to see graduation rates from community college and state college as a function of a student's high school GPA, as that would control for the potential lower quality of students in community college.

Re: A twenty-year professor on starting college this fall: Don’t

#67

Post by t-writescode »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #57
non-entity wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You probably also don’t want to work someplace that prioritizes a degree over experience. No but I want to work on the things they're working on. As much as I despise the absolute scam that's peddled by universities, and dont think they're for everyone, they can still open up a lot of opportunities that would otherwise be inaccessible or highly difficult to access. OTOH If all you're worried about is money, then ye…

Money buys options. Options are freedom. Don’t let others gate you unnecessarily. We all operate in a physical world that doesn’t care about credentials as long as you adhere to the laws of physics (caveat aside for professionals that require credentials by law, such as the medical profession and such). Going to school in another country that’s more reasonable about costs (Europe comes to mind) is also an option. Con…

Or honestly state colleges. There's some really great state colleges in the US and they're far less expensive than some of the other options out there.

Re: A twenty-year professor on starting college this fall: Don’t

#68

Post by MyHypatia »

frankbreetz wrote: post #18

As a millennial college graduate, my number one piece of advice to college bound high schoolers is do the first two years at community college. The debt is not worth the experience. Most people spend the first two years figuring stuff out, community college is a great place to do that. I didn't even know this was an option until after college and I feel failed by my high school college advisors. Unless you are very c…

Strongly agree. Community college enabled me to knock out almost 2 years of school in 1 year by taking classes during the regular semester, weekend classes, online classes, and summer classes. I also saved tens of thousands of dollars, and had much smaller class sizes than at the university. My professors were only focused on educating, not research, not arguing over grant money, and not flying around to conferences. I found my community college classmates more mature. Many students in the university seemed to be there because their parents wanted them to be there.

Re: A twenty-year professor on starting college this fall: Don’t

#69

Post by sverhagen »

netsharc wrote: post #61
wikibob wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagree. Graduation rates are drastically lower from community colleges. There is vastly less academic support available. The people around you will be vastly less ambitious. This will rub off on you. Yes 4 year university is now overpriced in America. But if you can, go to a 4 year university. Yes maybe go to an in-state university instead of out of state if that is cheaper, or go where you get the best financial a…

As a EUian: look overseas. Many universities in Europe offer programs in English. It'll be an even mind-broadening experience, and it's significantly more affordable (I'll take this link from 2018 as a baseline: https://www.topuniversities.com/student-info/student-finance... ).

As a EUian, college in your own country could be near free, some fees but heavily government sponsored. For foreign students the pricing model is completely different, in fact this is the college's big cash cow, so that may make the equation very different for those you're so kindly inviting in. I'm all for the exchange experience, though!

Re: A twenty-year professor on starting college this fall: Don’t

#70

Post by serf »

wikibob wrote: post #21
frankbreetz wrote: post #18

As a millennial college graduate, my number one piece of advice to college bound high schoolers is do the first two years at community college. The debt is not worth the experience. Most people spend the first two years figuring stuff out, community college is a great place to do that. I didn't even know this was an option until after college and I feel failed by my high school college advisors. Unless you are very c…

Disagree. Graduation rates are drastically lower from community colleges. There is vastly less academic support available. The people around you will be vastly less ambitious. This will rub off on you. Yes 4 year university is now overpriced in America. But if you can, go to a 4 year university. Yes maybe go to an in-state university instead of out of state if that is cheaper, or go where you get the best financial a…

>Graduation rates are drastically lower from community colleges.

how is that a useful metric for anything, really?

Look how many extra programs pull people into community colleges, and look at the difference in accessibility between community colleges and universities.

A stay-at-home mother isn't going to be eyeballing Stanford as a viable way to get her nursing degree with night classes. In the same instance, a stay-at-home mother who is using community college in order to get a degree necessarily has a lot more difficulty in managing her time and money than a university aged adult being sent to university by their parents with far fewer personal responsibilities and burdens.

The stay-at-home mother will necessarily have higher drop-out rates just simply from things that exist as burdens in their life from the get-go. As will the displaced worker who is being funded by the state for re-training at their local colleges.

University life is designed to reduce burden on the student in order to facilitate their learning. Comparing metrics like drop-out rates between universities and community colleges is wholly unfair. They both result in degrees, but they serve (mostly) different communities of people.

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