What are the benefits to attending community college for two years? With so many colleges and universities in the U.S., it is difficult to decide on where to go and what is the right path. When looking at schools, there are certain factors that you have in mind such as location, program, and most importantly costs. It is a crime how much people need to pay to cover tuition and fees. Thousands of young people are drowning in huge amounts of student loan debt. But honestly, they are not being smart about it.
The expectation is to attend some Ivy League school to be proud of when applying for jobs. However, the notion that Ivy League schools are a better route has no validity. Is it truly smart to spend over $60,000 a year for a program that is equivalent to a cheaper school’s program? As the student loan situation gets worse, more and more people are realizing that they don’t need to go to an expensive school to get a proper education. And refreshingly, more people are realizing that going to a community college is nothing to look down upon. There are lots of benefits to attending community college for two years.
Community colleges are gaining better reputations as they have been trying harder to gain recognition. In fact, students at community colleges perform better than students at regular universities. Plus, they are cheaper, ranging from $4,000 to $6,000 a year. So why go to a university? Very few community colleges offer Bachelor programs so you have no other choice but to do the four-year college. The trick is to attend a community college for your first two years and then transfer.
The first two years of college is mainly focused on general requirements. There is no point in spending over $10,000 a semester for classes that are not even part of your major. Also, it is absolutely silly to spend that much on classes when you don’t even have a major. A community college is a good way to test the waters. Once you finish your two years and get an Associate’s degree, you can then transfer to a university and only spend two years worth of tuition rather than the full four years.
This was the route I took in my college education. At first, I was applying to regular universities that averaged $40,000 a year in costs. But then my dad suggested that I go to the community college near our home to save money, as we couldn’t afford the other schools. I wasn’t thrilled about it but I’m glad I listened to my dad. The community college was one of the best in the state and faculty at universities spoke highly of students who transferred from there. When I attended, I felt like I was given a very good education. I saved money and finished within two years.
In the state of Massachusetts, which is where I was, they have a program called MassTransfer that will allow you to transfer all your credits with ease to public state universities. Once I was done at the community college, I went to one of the colleges that participated in the program and was exempted from most of the general requirement classes. I just had to study for two years with the majority of my classes associated with my major. Definitely look into whether your state offers a similar program. I highly recommend taking this route as it saved me a lot of money.
