One bit of advice that I often hear about reducing college costs is to do the first two years at community college, then transfer. I have real trepidations about this advice, though. It can work for some people, but are you among them?
The first problem is that not all community colleges are the same. We’re asking a tremendous amount of the community college system. Community colleges provide pre-college remedial work for high school graduates, accelerated courses for talented high-school students, general-education courses for students who hope to transfer to four-year colleges, career training for people entering occupations that need post-high-school study but not a college degree, continuing education for people changing careers in mid-life, and enrichment classes for the community at large. That’s a lot of different audiences with very different needs! There is no way that every community college can do all of these things well.
If you are considering doing community college before a four-year college (or having your child do community college), you need to find out if this college is set up for students who plan to transfer. Does it offer courses that will transfer? How many of its students are on that track? How well does it work with the accepting institutions? How do students do when they transfer? The University of Illinois developed an engineering program with several community colleges that offers guaranteed transfer to successful students. That’s fabulous. It’s also rare, which is unfortunate.
At the University of Illinois at Chicago, where I teach, I often see students come in from community college who are not prepared for the rigors of a big, diverse, and ambitious campus. People who started at UIC as freshmen have survived the weed-out process and adjusted to the pace. Meanwhile, there are some community colleges that are more like high school after high school. They have so few students who transfer that they don’t know how to prepare their students for a four-year institution. These people get thrown into a lecture class with 146 other students and a professor who has no patience with students who want practice questions or insist that they can’t take the exams as scheduled (um, that would be me). Most of these students rise to the challenge, but others don’t.
I’d argue that the choice of community college is more important than the choice of four-year college, because there are many ways to go wrong. If a college has more students who need remediation from high school than preparation for a full-fledged university, students hoping to transfer may be shortchanged. They may not be able to get the classes that four-year colleges want to see, and they may not be asked to work to a university level.
If you are going the community college route, do your homework. Figure out where you want to transfer (or at least have a few ideas), then figure out what that campus requires from transfer applicants. Meet with advisers at community colleges in your area to determine if they have programs designed for bachelor-bound students. Track down people who transferred successfully and get their advice. You may need to commute to the next county to attend a community college that prepares successful transfers. Trust me, it’s worth it.
And, when you transfer, understand that you’ll be playing in a different league. You may have to change your game to meet the intensity. Some people do it, and others wash out.
My bias is that students who want a four-year degree should got a college that is in the business of offering them. However, I know that many community college graduates are successful when they transfer, and the cost savings are real. It just takes a lot of preparation to make a successful transfer, and I don’t feel like everyone who recommends community college realizes that.
