[twblalock]

That's the system many universities have. Community colleges are intended to serve students who are unprepared for universities, can't afford to attend universities, or have other nontraditional backgrounds. Most community college administrators would argue that your suggested changes would make the college less able to serve its students.

There is always a tension between meeting the needs of the nontraditional student body and making sure students make academic progress. I agree with you that community colleges are not balancing that properly, but I don't think that something as strict as you suggest would be the answer. Making students choose a major when they don't know what they want to do with their lives is going to result in a lot of wasted time if they change their minds.

Most of the majors outside of STEM fields end up having the same coursework requirements anyway. Even at the University of California, many students spend the first two years taking the same courses. So, it's not clear that making people choose a major at community college would make much of a difference, except for STEM majors. It's only after transferring that most of the major-specific courses are encountered.

The aspect of community college that stood out most to me was how you could avoid interacting with the administration other than registering for classes. I think it would be a great step for community colleges to require every student to meet with an academic adviser at least once per year. Of course, that would probably require more advisers.