[Crake]

California is very far from me--I actually ended up on the other coast looking for cheaper college (CUNY system, which I feel is similar in some ways). It looks like out of state tuition at community college is about $5000 in California, which isn't so bad, but most places require you to live there a year without taking any classes in order to become a resident for college purposes (so you'd have to take a year off between community college and the four year, possibly), and finding a way to survive without a degree or any social network would have been quite difficult. I wouldn't really have had the money to move out there when I was younger; it's taken me this long to get to the east coast, which is a lot closer compared to California.

I think it's a really great system for people who live in state, though! (or states close to California) I've heard some things about impacted classes, but it sounds like California has their CC -> 4 year transfer system set up much better than a lot of places. The regent scholarship sounds great, but it'd have been a huge gamble to try to move out there for it, since you won't know until you're applying to the four year school if you'll get it or not. There are so many unknowns, when tuition is this high. The CoA for Berkeley for example is $33,000 for in state and over $50,000 for out of state.

Why is paying for college so much harder than getting accepted to one? Ugh.