Why you should explore your Community College

High schools have a tendency to push a 4-year college education on their students.  4-year colleges, including state schools, are incredibly expensive.

If you are considering earning a 4-year degree, you can cut down the expense by going to community college first.  Let’s take a moment to examine why you might want to spend some time in community college before heading off to a 4-year school.

The benefits of community college

Community college offers a ton of benefits to the community.  Many people take an odd class here or there just to stay sharp or focus on professional development.  Even if you decide not to attend a community college before transferring to a 4-year school, you should keep it in mind as you progress through your career.

Cost

The average cost of an in-state student in an in-state university is $9,580 for tuition alone.  Include fees and room-and-board and most students spend upwards of $25,000 each year.

Compare that to one year of community college, which has an average annual total cost of $3730.  Many states have made community college tuition-free in an effort to help curb student debt. 

Since community colleges are designed to be in your community, you also have the benefit of living at home to help keep your expenses down.  Managing a household is expensive, the longer you can delay taking that step, the more money you will save.

Smaller class sizes

I took calculus in community college.  Our class had less than 20 people in it.  My husband, on the other hand, took calculus in a state-run 4-year university lecture hall with over 300 other students. 

According to an infographic created by the National Center for Education Statistics, our experiences were typical.  The average community college class has between 25 and 35 students, where university courses can have150 to upwards of 300 students in a lecture hall.

Smaller class sizes mean you have more time to ask the professor questions and don’t wind up in a situation where you can’t see the board.

Professors who care about teaching

Most university professors are there primarily to do research.  They run labs, have a cohort of graduate students to manage, are required to fill out grant proposals, and are required to publish a contracted number of times per year.  Then they have teaching heaped on as an additional responsibility.  Many find the teaching portion of their job to be a distraction.

This isn’t the case for community college professors.  They don’t have research obligations or graduate students to supervise.  They are just there to teach.

As a result, the teaching at community college can be of a higher quality than a similar class taught in university by a distracted research professor or post-doc.

Try out your degree or major before committing 

If you aren’t sure what you want to go to school for or are hesitating on a degree you’ve already decided on, community college is a much cheaper way to try it out than spending an extra year or two in university.

Meet with the teachers and try off-the-wall classes to narrow down what you want to spend your life doing.  Then transfer to a 4-year school when you have completed your basic requirements and know what you want to major in.

Trade cross-training opportunities

My husband and I both dreamed of being astronauts and designing spaceships.  I took classes for car and engine repair. If my husband had gone to community college, he would have picked up a certification as a paramedic.

Community college has a ton of 2-year degrees that can give you useful skills for what you want to do as an adult, and they offer you a way to get a job that pays more than minimum wage in college. 

Want to be a doctor? Consider getting a nursing or paramedic certificate.  Looking to become a mystery writer? Take some forensic science classes. 

A related 2-year certificate can make you much better at your desired job.

Automatic acceptance programs for in-state 4-year schools

Many community colleges sign transfer agreements with local in-state universities.  Those agreements allow students to be automatically accepted to the 4-year university when they meet certain standards at the community college. 

Check with your local college to see which schools they have these agreements with.  Befriend your counselor and check with the school you plan to transfer to make sure you take courses that will transfer into your major.

Can start in High School

4-year universities require you to have your high school diploma before you start.  Community colleges have no such requirements.

You could take courses after school or during the summer and get a head start on your 4-year degree.  If you plan it right, you could even graduate high school with an associates degree.

Potential downsides

There are a lot of positives of going to community college first, but there are also a few potential downsides. 

Still live at home

One of the benefits of community college is that you can still live at home while you start university studies.  That becomes a problem if you are in a situation where you want or need to leave home ASAP. 

Some community colleges offer on-campus housing, but a lot don’t.  If yours doesn’t, you could rent a small apartment with a couple of friends if you are really ready to leave home.

Not all classes transfer for every major

Even with transfer agreements in place, you need to be careful to make sure everything transfers the way you expect.

Often, major-specific courses won’t transfer.  So that introduction to engineering course may not work in place of the 4-year university’s equivalent.  Fortunately, most general education and basic pre-requisites will transfer.  Those courses typically include basic math sequences (calculus- differential equations) and whatever history course you were debating.

Talk with counselors of both schools so you have a clear idea of what will and will not transfer.

Often do not transfer outside of the state school system

Are you looking to transfer to Yale?  Good luck.

Those transfer agreements are usually only to local, in-state schools.  So if you want to go somewhere else or to a private school, you may be forced to apply as a high school graduate and start from square one. 

Any school that doesn’t have a transfer agreement with your community college is not obligated to take any credit transfers.

Don’t get the stereotypical “college experience”

Transfer students are treated differently from incoming freshmen.  It is likely you won’t get an orientation, and in some universities, you won’t be offered dorm space.  

The school and professors will treat you like the Junior you come in as, but you won’t have the institutional knowledge of someone who was there as a freshman.  It can be difficult to navigate being thrown in the deep end like that, but the learning curve is steep.  Within a semester you will be caught up on the university’s workings.

However, you may not be as invested in the school teams and traditions as someone who has been there from the beginning.

Have you looked into your local community college?

Community colleges open education opportunities up at a much lower price point than their university counterparts.

Anyone can go at any time and they typically boast fantastic teachers and support systems.  Check out your local community college and see if they fit your plans and goals.