[Aloisius]

California Community College tuition is about $1,100 per year and another $1,700 in books and supplies. That excludes room and board, personal expenses, transportation and the like. That's not quite as low as Germany, but very doable.

California State University system by comparison costs $6,600 in tuition for the year while the University of California system is around $13,000. Of course both of those are probably located nowhere near your home, so you'll end up spending a far greater amount on room and board if you need it.

[outworlder]

Not being from the US, I always thought that community colleges had a bad reputation. Isn't that true?

[Aloisius]

They vary dramatically in quality (similar to high schools) and they are typically two-year colleges. For training mid-skill workers, they do a decent job. It is hard to really compare them to four-year colleges because they have open enrollment (anyone can go regardless of previous grades).

They also provide an affordable way of transitioning to a four-year college for the highly motivated and in some states, top-ranking high school students can enroll in community college to earn an associates degree their high school pays for putting them on an accelerated path.

[pantalaimon]

Are you really required to buy the books? I've only bought CLRS and never really needed it. And there's always the library, bur unless you want to go more in-depth than the lecture, your* lecture notes and the slides would suffice to get through the test.

[*] fortunately I had a friend who was dedicated to producing beautiful lecture notes in LaTeX

[nsenifty]

The tuition is higher if you are not already a California resident.