[nkangoh]

I went to community college and transferred into an excellent, top 5 (according to some rankings anyway) school. I would say that most people in community college don't really want to be there. Many of the students that I started with are still there (3 years later), and will likely not graduate nor transfer.

From my experience I still think the education problem needs to be solved in K-6th grade. I believe my successful transition from community college to a university was the result of excellent classmates who I joined in middle and high school (many of them went to schools like Yale or MIT so perhaps there was some sort of exposure effect) and/or very encouraging community college teachers/professors. Personally I found community college professors to be way more invested (on the upper end, anyway) then my high school teachers, and I went to a pretty good high school.

The reason it should start at K-6th grade is because so many people lack solid foundations. There are people in community college who are not good at algebra. These fundamentals need to be well taught. In addition, kids need to learn how to teach themselves and also need to be properly motivated, but not coddled.

Increasing the pay of teachers and making teaching as a profession more prestigious and rigorous will solve the K-6th grade education problem, which will help with education as a whole.

Oh, and we should do something about poverty (because let's face it, if you're poor and in a terrible neighborhood, the odds are against you. I know, because I was that person).

[forrestthewoods]

Growing up we had a family friend who taught at both the local high school and community college. He always said that at the CC he saw both extremes. On one hand yes the vast majority of students there didn't give a shit and it was just high school 2.0 to delay the real world.

But he also had the students who cared the most. The single working mothers. The students who desperately wanted a good education but couldn't afford it so they were taking the responsible Community College -> State University path.

[cafard]

An acquaintance taught at a NY state CC for a while after retiring from a state school in the Midwest. He said that he found a bimodal distribution in his classes: the highly motivated and well prepared on the one end, the unprepared or unmotivated on the other, and not that many between.

[heydonovan]

When I was in Community College back in 2010, absolutely nobody wanted to be there. I didn't understand why the experience wasn't the same as portrayed in the movies. No dorm rooms, crazy parties, or bonding with other students. You were either there because you were stuck making minimum wage, to transfer, or because you were in trouble (a lot of kids made some deal with their parents or parol officers). You got in, and got out. I only stopped going because I got an awesome job at a startup.

Just recently went back to Community College, if nothing more than to say I've a degree too. It still feels a little silly though. I've been programming for years, and I still have to take "Computer Programming Fundamentals", which is a waste of time, and money out of my pocket. Oh well.

[dpeck]

You can always CLEP out, http://clep.collegeboard.org/exam/information-systems-comput...

[up_and_up]

> I would say that most people in community college don't really want to be there.

Odd. That wasn't my experience at all.

I went to Cabrillo College, a community college in Aptos, CA.

Great school, inspiring profs (many with PhD's), students were generally engaged and excited to be there.

I transferred to Berkeley, did well there (felt well-prepared) and saved a heck of a lot of money a long the way. Zero debt post graduation.

I highly recommend Community College, albeit make sure good transfer options exist.

I have heard of people transferring the Stanford and Yale from Cabrillo, but maybe it's just an exception.

[bane]

I concur. At least in the circle of people I spent my time with, we were there really to study and grab the opportunity CC gave us. The teachers don't make anything there, so they're also extra eager to help students who really put forth the effort.

Hands down, 9 of the 10 best teachers I had were CC profs. They were so happy to help, they'd show up on weekends and help out with study groups and review coursework again to make sure you really got the foundational stuff so you didn't get lost later.

The age range was crazy too, from sharp 14 year olds there to take Calculus, to senior citizens. always somebody interesting to run into and incredible tutoring opportunities everywhere.

CC can be an incredible resource.

Most important, they're also designed for mid-career training, so you can go and take classes in whatever they offer even if you aren't in a degree program, just because you want to. My wife and I both take classes from time-to-time in subjects we've tried to autodidact, but some cheap classroom time has ended up helping everytime. Or we'll take a class together in something like Art and turn it into a date-night....get dinner after work, take a painting class, come home with a little piece of art.

[dllthomas]

"The age range was crazy too, from sharp 14 year olds there to take Calculus, to senior citizens."

I took a Recent American History class, and one of my classmates had been a member of SNCC.

[dllthomas]

My experience with Cabrillo was similar. For me, it made an excellent highschool.

[saraid216]

> From my experience I still think the education problem needs to be solved in K-6th grade.

This is true, but the fundamental education problem is that we're teaching the wrong foundations to begin with. It's not the substance of the curricula that's a problem but the overarching goal: we create adults who either follow the rules or rebel against them. In neither case do they think about the rules or engage with them constructively.

The consequence is, well... today.

> Increasing the pay of teachers and making teaching as a profession more prestigious and rigorous will solve the K-6th grade education problem, which will help with education as a whole.

I disagree. Oh, I think we should do it, and we should stop tying school funding to test results, but making teaching prestigious and lucrative won't fix anything by itself: bad teachers will get worse even as good teachers get better. Look at doctors.

I actually favor the opposite. Lower the number of paid teachers (and raise the salary accordingly) and start creating a social practice of volunteering. Use the paid staff as expert guides and institutional resources for the volunteers and gap-fillers in the curriculum. What you lose in pure rigor you'll make up for in quality and relevance. (This doesn't apply past high school; I'd rather see the consequences of this hit higher education before I speculate about how they should change to suit.)

[mc32]

I agree with all you say, I just want to add that parenting matters very much. Parents who care and are involved and demand. Yes, many parents go overboard and put their kids in a pressure cooker, but there is a middle ground between that and parents who say, 'that's what school is for' (to teach them). In other words the kids need to be accultured into wanting if not loving academics and learning.

For many of the kids I grew up with, school was an irritant --something they had to go to but didn't want to. Most of their parents were middle class but not the educated yuppie parents.

But to this program. While it may not guarantee better jobs for all graduates, I still think it's good idea to have young adults exposed to ideas and mentors. I'd rather have educated unemployed people than uneducated unemployed people if it ended in a wash... Still, I think this is a good way to address one thing which may keep some kids from going the next step in their way to higher learning and hopefully more fulfilling jobs.

[edgyswingset]

The majority of students who I went to Community College with were, like myself, there to take university-level classes and transfer.

Granted, we were a bit unique in that we were 10 miles from a university, and mimicked much of that school's courses.

[zyxley]

> Many of the students that I started with are still there (3 years later)

How many of them are working full or part time while taking classes?