[aaron-lebo]

I went to two years of community college for under 2k. My parents invested in a state program when I was younger which promised to pay for 4 years of state schooling. Not sure exactly how much they put in, but had you withdrawn the amount to use it for private schooling it was like 10k, so I'm assuming not much more than that.

Because community college was so cheap, I was able to use that other funding to pay for a graduate degree and part of my PhD program.

It's not expensive, people just have goofy ideas about what being educated means.

[DSMan195276]

I agree completely, I have no idea why you're being down-voted. I got a 4-year bachelor's degree in CSE at my community college (through a partnership with a bigger name school). I did all 4 years at the local college, and it would have cost me less then 30k for the entire program. However with scholarships (Which over half of my class receives) I graduated without any debt at all.

There are options for cheap schooling out there.

[HarryHirsch]

We have students transfer in from the local community college. They struggle mightily, some even survive. With online labs in the physical sciences (instead of real glassware) it's an experience that I wouldn't wish on anyone. You can't call it education, the level is too low for that.

[yusyusyus]

This may be true in the situation you're looking at. In neither of the community colleges that I have been to has this been the case. We've been in real laboratory sciences with skilled instructors and successful students have gone on to do well in university.

I think, though, the point is worth mentioning: not all community colleges are as good as the ones I've been to. Students would be well advised to consider the options and opportunities prior to matriculation (especially in light of an order of magnitude difference between even state university and community colleges).

[DSMan195276]

As a counter point, I attended a community college program that partners with a larger school to provide a CSE degree at my local community college. When we have combined classes (Which are taught via video) the students on the community college side on average score a letter grade higher. With that, when students on the main campus join us for some classes (commonly during the summer) they frequently have a hard time due to not learning everything we did in previous classes.

That's not to say you're wrong, but you can't judge every community college program the same. Some of them aren't great (Especially if it's involving online labs, like you pointed out), but some are extremely good.

[aaron-lebo]

Didn't realize I was so unprepared for my schooling. Thank you for letting me know.

Do you think they'll give me my money back?

[HarryHirsch]

My undergraduate supervisor would say that you mustn't suppress outliers, it distorts the statistics.