Anonymous wrote:For me, it depends on the person. For my super social, can thrive any where niece, I recommended CC. For my cousin who has enough in her 529 for in state and 2 years room and board, I suggested the flag ship with the first two years on campus.

Once you graduate, it won't matter, but the environment and growth on the path to graduation has impact and matters.

You don't let mom and dad handle the "advice"?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow you people are terrible. Most of the kids at my high school ended up at community college. Many of my friends who were straight A students went there because it was an affordable option for their families. About half transferred to bigger schools like Towson, frostburg, and UMD. The rest ended up finishing degrees at UMUC. These friends didnt end up being lawyers but all are employed, as teacher, admin assistant, graphic designer, to name a few. I guess those jobs wouldnt be good enough for the children of DCUMers though.

+1 I’ve taught in CC and at a FCPS full of kids headed to T20 schools. Some of my CC students would blow the T20 kids out of the water, and they do it without the resources. You people are terrible.

I think OP should have framed thread question differently and not assumed a stigma. Posters responded with negative stereotypes.

I took a couple classes as an adult at NOVA after already having a 4 year degree at both Annandale and Alexandria campuses.

As a parent, I wouldn’t allow my child to attend NOVA but we did look at some other 2 year community colleges besides NOVA that had slightly better outcomes and a more traditional full time student population.

The classes are not on par with a 4 yr college classes. The classes at the 100 level were what you would expect at the high school level. By the 3rd week at least half the class had stopped showing up. Talking to those in the class a lot of them worked and just choose work over school. And then some were really struggling bc English was not their first language I think very few students are going full time and focusing solely on school.

For me, it depends on the person. For my super social, can thrive any where niece, I recommended CC. For my cousin who has enough in her 529 for in state and 2 years room and board, I suggested the flag ship with the first two years on campus.

Once you graduate, it won't matter, but the environment and growth on the path to graduation has impact and matters.

Anonymous wrote:Wow you people are terrible. Most of the kids at my high school ended up at community college. Many of my friends who were straight A students went there because it was an affordable option for their families. About half transferred to bigger schools like Towson, frostburg, and UMD. The rest ended up finishing degrees at UMUC. These friends didnt end up being lawyers but all are employed, as teacher, admin assistant, graphic designer, to name a few. I guess those jobs wouldnt be good enough for the children of DCUMers though.

+1 I’ve taught in CC and at a FCPS full of kids headed to T20 schools. Some of my CC students would blow the T20 kids out of the water, and they do it without the resources. You people are terrible.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The average community college is full of dregs of society; felons, registered sex offenders, drug addicts, kids who finished in the very bottom of their public high school, and many who never even graduated from high school. Anyone can sign up for community college courses; 80-90% are just there to waste their time and steal financial aid refunds.

Why would you put your teen, in the prime of their life, in such a setting? How is that an inspiring, competitive, or uplifting ethos?

You going to be thrilled when your gullible son comes home and tells you his new girlfriend is some tatted up stripper he met in sociology 101? Or your daughter tells you her new boyfriend is some drug dealer she met in the community college cafeteria?

What does this even mean?!

When you’re low income and get pell grant and federal loans, you sign up for random classes and each semester and you’ll receive thousands of dollars via a financial aid refund check. After the surplus aid is dispersed to you, you quit showing up to class. You do this until you max out pell and/or federal loan borrowing limits. Community colleges are full of unmotivated and functionally illiterate who do not give a lick about school.

Go volunteer with low income folks then come back and apologize for this ignorant drivel.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The average community college is full of dregs of society; felons, registered sex offenders, drug addicts, kids who finished in the very bottom of their public high school, and many who never even graduated from high school. Anyone can sign up for community college courses; 80-90% are just there to waste their time and steal financial aid refunds.

Why would you put your teen, in the prime of their life, in such a setting? How is that an inspiring, competitive, or uplifting ethos?

You going to be thrilled when your gullible son comes home and tells you his new girlfriend is some tatted up stripper he met in sociology 101? Or your daughter tells you her new boyfriend is some drug dealer she met in the community college cafeteria?

What does this even mean?!

When you’re low income and get pell grant and federal loans, you sign up for random classes and each semester and you’ll receive thousands of dollars via a financial aid refund check. After the surplus aid is dispersed to you, you quit showing up to class. You do this until you max out pell and/or federal loan borrowing limits. Community colleges are full of unmotivated and functionally illiterate who do not give a lick about school.

I don’t really understand the stigma. If you are in the cohort that does two years and then transfers into a four year university, who would ever know? Your future employer wouldn’t know. Your graduate school is going to only care about your overall gpa , grades in your major and consider you no differently than others that started as freshman.

If you are planning to be a tradesperson or health technician and want a two year AA and certification, this would be the goal anyway. A BA in English from a low or mid ranked 4 year college isn’t going to help you get a job requiring skills and specific certifications.

If you want to become a teacher, therapist, nurse, accountant, paralegal, own a small business, go into the arts, non profit work or any of the numerous fields that don’t pay high salaries why wouldn’t you save two years of tuition?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:After 2 years, most community college students end up transferring to a university, with many of them transferring to flagships, and are in just as good as, if not better, standing than most of their peers from high school who went straight to university.

First start with your premise. First of all most do not end up transferring. A lot of the degrees offered at community colleges are terminal degrees.

Yep. Most community college graduates have a license in their field of study and are ready to work at their trade. But if they decide later to pursue a bachelors degree they have a lot of transferable credits.

I saw both of my sisters fail out of 4 year colleges after freshman/sophomore year and come back and do CC, then a local 4 year. I think for some kids it's probably the smartest choice!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because rich people hate poor people.

That's it. That's the answer.

Rich people should be required to volunteer at a community college or make a donation to be excused from service.

No. We don't want them infecting our spaces or stealing jobs. Just tax them.

Too easy. Make them serve the students they think they’re too good for or pay tuition for a kid to be excused. What they’ll find at community college is normal kids working harder than they could imagine.

Because it’s cheap or free and therefore available and accessible and no status to show off.

I went from NOVA to VCU to career decades ago, as did my sister and two cousins. All of us have careers and raise families in the area - similar to what people who didn't go to CC do.

I don't care about the stigma. I don't hang out with those people anyway. I like what I do and at the end of the day, what someone else think about CC matters to me about as much as a fly buzzing around on the other side of town.

As far as drugs, you're kidding yourself if you don't think there's any in the freshman dorms of any university.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because rich people hate poor people.

That's it. That's the answer.

Rich people should be required to volunteer at a community college or make a donation to be excused from service.

No. We don't want them infecting our spaces or stealing jobs. Just tax them.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The average community college is full of dregs of society; felons, registered sex offenders, drug addicts, kids who finished in the very bottom of their public high school, and many who never even graduated from high school. Anyone can sign up for community college courses; 80-90% are just there to waste their time and steal financial aid refunds.

Why would you put your teen, in the prime of their life, in such a setting? How is that an inspiring, competitive, or uplifting ethos?

You going to be thrilled when your gullible son comes home and tells you his new girlfriend is some tatted up stripper he met in sociology 101? Or your daughter tells you her new boyfriend is some drug dealer she met in the community college cafeteria?

What does this even mean?!

It means the poster has never taken a community college class. I’ve been teaching at community colleges for 30 years, & I’ve had only one confirmed stripper in my classes, & she had no visible tattoos.

+1 The irony is community college students probably receive better instruction in small classes with caring professors during the first two years than kids at R1's being taught by TA's or profs focused on research.

But the R1s have better chemists who can cook better party drugs.