EDIT: I want to emphasize I am comparing a top ranked school (think Duke, Brown, Northwestern) to a community college. I do agree that a lot of four year schools are money wasters but if you can get into a top school, here are things to consider.
One of the most popular pieces of advice I see on this sub is to complete coursework at a community college before transferring to a larger university in order to save money. As someone who has taken classes at the local community colleges in my city in addition to attending a top ranked private university here is just my personal perspective on the potential downsides. I mention top ranked university because some of these benefits are probably not as pronounced in lower ranked schools:
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You lose the opportunity to build a peer network. Graduating from a university where people’s parents were Chairman’s and CEOs offered a lot more professional opportunities. Those four years are a good time to develop relationships with people who can get you an interview.
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Your peers are a big aspect of learning and I didn’t find people at CC to be as motivated. Didn’t participate in discussions.
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You will have to do a meticulous job of knowing exactly what you want to do and the major you want to graduate with if you want to transfer your credits. And that’s completely contingent on whether the university will even accept you. There is a chance that not all of your credits will transfer and that standard four year track is now five years.
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I want to emphasize I am only speaking about my own experience taking quantitative courses. The overall quality of instruction and rigor of the curriculum is nowhere near comparable between mu university and then community colleges I attended If learning material is important to you I would really reconsider going to a CC. I got A’s in my CC courses with minimal effort not because I’m very smart or good with numbers but because I found they were teaching the subject matter at a much lower level and teaching much less content. If you’re only about the grade then obviously this is a moot point.
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More on the previous point: if you’re doing your foundational classes at CC, you might not be adequately prepared for the more advanced level courses at uni. For example, in my Accounting 101 class we only did journal entries. Never looked at a 10k or anything more complex than basic journal entries.
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For higher ranked schools, it’s actually more difficult to transfer into than regular admissions.
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Internship opportunities during your college years are more accessible to people at an established university. More recruiters come for fairs and these are known as target schools. I’m not saying it’s impossible to secure a summer internship independently but when you’re 18-20 you don’t really have anything to rely on but the prestige of your school. If I were considering two 19 year olds for an internship I’m gonna go with the kid that’s coming from Georgetown instead of the local CC because I have very limited information to go on.
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The top private universities have very generous financial aid packages. Don’t think you can’t afford it until you see what they’ll offer you.
Anyway, thanks for reading. I know this was a very long post. I know that community colleges have there place in the educational pipeline but there are some major drawbacks that people don’t necessarily bring up in this sub that I wanted to highlight.
September 27, 2019 at 05:40PM
