Before I talk about the merits of community colleges, I did not consider it an option (for various reasons that aren’t important right now) when I was thinking about colleges. That being said, I did attend Bergen Community College a few years after I received my BA from Harvard. I did it for reasons that were different from the other students there (who were taking classes for education while I was trying to score with the chicas). In theory, I went to Harvard, one of the most difficult schools with brilliant students. While the caliber of the students at Bergen Community College was a bit lower, I felt that I learned quite a bit from my two classes (20th Century Art and Intro to Philosophy). And unlike Harvard professors who cared more about their research and publications, the community college professors were more lively and focused on teaching the subject matter.
Community colleges often get overlooked and people naturally assume that the quality of the education at a community college is lower than that of a four-year college. Students who spend their first two years at a junior colleges often move on to four year colleges and do equally well or often better than those who spent four years at the same school. Based on hundreds of resumes I have received (for my last three Internet ventures), I have found that people who have completed their Associate Degree from community colleges and then completed their BA from a four-year school generally had a higher GPA and had greater work experience—read: more employable.
While it may be true that many students chose community colleges because they couldn’t get into the four-year college of their choice, more often than not the decision to go to a local two-year college is financial. If a four-year college costs $20,000 per year with room and board, one can save significantly by attending a junior college that may cost quarter to half that amount. Don’t get me wrong. There are plenty of things that community colleges don’t offer. You aren’t going to go to a wild fraternity party or cheer on your football team on a Saturday afternoon. But you will develop a close relationship with your professors, gain a great education and meet friends. Perhaps you may be content with receiving an Associate Degree and that is the end of your college days. However, if you want to continue, the community colleges have many articulation agreements with four-year colleges you might eventually attend. And when you go to your four-year college of choice, you may realize that you haven’t missed much.
