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Surprised that nobody here mentioned community colleges yet. Not a silver bullet, but the total cost of someone commuting to a community college from home is an

Surprised that nobody here mentioned community colleges yet. Not a silver bullet, but the total cost of someone commuting to a community college from home is an order of magnitude cheaper than going to college. In many cases, CCs have explicit transfer programs, and the chances of transferring to a decent university after year two are pretty high.

elpakal 3y ago
+1, and don't forget that they don't force you to pay room & board for your dorm your first two years. I'm a product of the California Community College system and a lot of my teachers were teaching both in the UC and Cal State systems at the same time. I am happy with the quality of education I received.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
kjkjadksj 3y ago
Or even just in state colleges. I went to a large public school. It was a great school, but so are the big public flagships found at any state. I knew a lot of people who were out of state, taking loans, to do things like business or premed they could literally do wherever they came from for over half off tuition before you even account for financial aid or scholarships. CCs really aren't that much cheaper than in state rates for public schools, and you can even take certain classes at the local CC and transfer the credits over to the public school to save a little bit per credit hour and have somewhat inflated grades (plenty of people I know did this for their physics or math requirements over a summer). Another way to get free college is to just join the national guard program they have. A few friends did this as well. You do bootcamp which sucks, and like one weekend a month playing army in the woods during drill which I’m told also often sucks. But in the end you get free school and some pay. If you are used to doing hard work like manual labor, a weekend a month is not a bad deal. You can even land a job after through this experience and your degree e.g. in cybersecurity. There are options, obviously not as good as affording it outright but there are things you can do that aren’t going out of state on a huge loan, so I’m surprised why so many people opt to take routes that put them in the same exact place by their mid 20s but with a massive debt over their heads versus these seemingly less glamorous routes. Maybe the marketing of “leaving the parents nest” is just that good?
- HDThoreaun 3y ago
  Tuition at my states flagship, UIUC, is now 20k a year. Combine book costs and other misc and youre looking at 100k of debt before even accounting for room and board.
999900000999 3y ago
CCs are perfect for students who might not know if they need to go to college or not. Better to only waste a few hundred dollars to realize college isn't for you. I had an amazing time at Community College, and even though I took off time to work I ultimately did get a 4 year degree for a pretty low price . The biggest issue in my opinion would be all of the people who have tons of student loan debt but didn't exactly graduate. You have the worst of both worlds

elpakal 3y ago

+1, and don't forget that they don't force you to pay room & board for your dorm your first two years. I'm a product of the California Community College system and a lot of my teachers were teaching both in the UC and Cal State systems at the same time. I am happy with the quality of education I received.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

kjkjadksj 3y ago

Or even just in state colleges. I went to a large public school. It was a great school, but so are the big public flagships found at any state. I knew a lot of people who were out of state, taking loans, to do things like business or premed they could literally do wherever they came from for over half off tuition before you even account for financial aid or scholarships. CCs really aren't that much cheaper than in state rates for public schools, and you can even take certain classes at the local CC and transfer the credits over to the public school to save a little bit per credit hour and have somewhat inflated grades (plenty of people I know did this for their physics or math requirements over a summer). Another way to get free college is to just join the national guard program they have. A few friends did this as well. You do bootcamp which sucks, and like one weekend a month playing army in the woods during drill which I’m told also often sucks. But in the end you get free school and some pay. If you are used to doing hard work like manual labor, a weekend a month is not a bad deal. You can even land a job after through this experience and your degree e.g. in cybersecurity. There are options, obviously not as good as affording it outright but there are things you can do that aren’t going out of state on a huge loan, so I’m surprised why so many people opt to take routes that put them in the same exact place by their mid 20s but with a massive debt over their heads versus these seemingly less glamorous routes. Maybe the marketing of “leaving the parents nest” is just that good?

HDThoreaun 3y ago
Tuition at my states flagship, UIUC, is now 20k a year. Combine book costs and other misc and youre looking at 100k of debt before even accounting for room and board.

999900000999 3y ago

CCs are perfect for students who might not know if they need to go to college or not. Better to only waste a few hundred dollars to realize college isn't for you. I had an amazing time at Community College, and even though I took off time to work I ultimately did get a 4 year degree for a pretty low price . The biggest issue in my opinion would be all of the people who have tons of student loan debt but didn't exactly graduate. You have the worst of both worlds