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The most sensible option is community college for two years and then transferring to a state school.

jrkatz 11y ago
Unfortunately there are a lot of places in the states where that's not practical. Many, many students from my high school tried this route. The local CC has an arrangement with UCLA, so if the student gets good grades in a specific curriculum, they are guaranteed admission to UCLA for their final two years of college. In theory, that's great, but in practice the CC is underfunded and there aren't enough classes offered, so it takes 3, or even 4 years, to get into all the classes required for the transfer. Upon getting into UCLA they find their department won't accept some of their CC classes for credit because they weren't rigorous enough, or that they need some prereqs that weren't offered at the CC, and it will actually take 3 years at the UC campus to graduate. They enter the workforce 2 years after their peers who went straight to 4 year universities and the 3 years of CC is easily more expensive than the 1 year of UC tuition saved, especially considering they fed and housed themselves for 2 extra years. Their lifetime earnings drop or they have to retire later. None of this is their fault, either: The CC eagerly offers the few students who successfully (and luckily) navigated the class scheduling and credit transferring bureaucracy as the mode, and a 17 year old kid -- likely the first in their family to attend college -- isn't equipped to evaluate those claims. After all, why would they distrust the CC? They're told they'll save money and graduate at the same time, with the same degree, as their friends who went straight to UCLA and there's no reason for them to doubt that. While I'm sure many CCs are perfectly good places to spend the first 2 years of college, there are at least some tar pits out there. It's a real shame, too.
pvnick 11y ago
Agreed, that's what I did. The best thing is that in community college you can spend as much time as you want bouncing around and figuring out what you want in life, rather than being rushed to "get in, get out" like in a 4 year university. It's also much cheaper, and the quality of education for classes taken in the first two years (basic chemistry, history, literature, etc) is frequently on par with that at any 4 year university.
- meagain20000 11y ago
  I went to a CC in manhattan then to SUNY at Buffalo. At the CC I studied calculus, physics, chemistry, linear algebra, diff equations. I still think the education I got at the CC was better. The teachers were certainly better teachers.
  - pvnick 11y ago
    Yeah, the teachers at my CC were better I thought too, perhaps because they were there primarily to teach and not to research. That and the classes were so much smaller which is great.

Unfortunately there are a lot of places in the states where that's not practical. Many, many students from my high school tried this route. The local CC has an arrangement with UCLA, so if the student gets good grades in a specific curriculum, they are guaranteed admission to UCLA for their final two years of college. In theory, that's great, but in practice the CC is underfunded and there aren't enough classes offered, so it takes 3, or even 4 years, to get into all the classes required for the transfer. Upon getting into UCLA they find their department won't accept some of their CC classes for credit because they weren't rigorous enough, or that they need some prereqs that weren't offered at the CC, and it will actually take 3 years at the UC campus to graduate. They enter the workforce 2 years after their peers who went straight to 4 year universities and the 3 years of CC is easily more expensive than the 1 year of UC tuition saved, especially considering they fed and housed themselves for 2 extra years. Their lifetime earnings drop or they have to retire later. None of this is their fault, either: The CC eagerly offers the few students who successfully (and luckily) navigated the class scheduling and credit transferring bureaucracy as the mode, and a 17 year old kid -- likely the first in their family to attend college -- isn't equipped to evaluate those claims. After all, why would they distrust the CC? They're told they'll save money and graduate at the same time, with the same degree, as their friends who went straight to UCLA and there's no reason for them to doubt that. While I'm sure many CCs are perfectly good places to spend the first 2 years of college, there are at least some tar pits out there. It's a real shame, too.

pvnick 11y ago

Agreed, that's what I did. The best thing is that in community college you can spend as much time as you want bouncing around and figuring out what you want in life, rather than being rushed to "get in, get out" like in a 4 year university. It's also much cheaper, and the quality of education for classes taken in the first two years (basic chemistry, history, literature, etc) is frequently on par with that at any 4 year university.

meagain20000 11y ago
I went to a CC in manhattan then to SUNY at Buffalo. At the CC I studied calculus, physics, chemistry, linear algebra, diff equations. I still think the education I got at the CC was better. The teachers were certainly better teachers.
- pvnick 11y ago
  Yeah, the teachers at my CC were better I thought too, perhaps because they were there primarily to teach and not to research. That and the classes were so much smaller which is great.