I have long believed community colleges to be one of the most underrated economic engines in the country. It's also one of our most democratic institutions. I wouldn't have been the first member of my entire family to graduate from college if it weren't for CC.

CC's are government services at their most cost-effective and best.

"Communisty Colleges"? Ugh...

Nabb1: "Communisty Colleges"? Ugh...

Someone needs a cut of those billions, apparently.

Can we call them what they are - vocational schools?

Angry Drunk Bureaucrat: Nabb1: "Communisty Colleges"? Ugh...

Someone needs a cut of those billions, apparently.

That's what I thought at first, but then I looked and I thought about:

communisty colleges.

Hence, my "ugh."

HenryFnord: Can we call them what they are - vocational schools?

Well, since that's not what they are, I would advise against it. I think community college captures the gist.

Nabb1: That's what I thought at first, but then I looked and I thought about:

communisty colleges.

Hence, my "ugh."

Yeah, well let's hope they chuck a fist full of those billions into Social Studies or History programs, then. Or at least rhetoric.

Howie Spankowitz: I have long believed community colleges to be one of the most underrated economic engines in the country. It's also one of our most democratic institutions. I wouldn't have been the first member of my entire family to graduate from college if it weren't for CC.

CC's are government services at their most cost-effective and best.

But then you don't get the knowledge and experience that comes from partying for four...er, six...years while going a hundred thousand dollars in debt.

Could you dump that into the real colleges first Obama? Thanks. Two straight years of 20% increases as I finish up isn't nice.

GAT_00: Could you dump that into the real colleges first Obama? Thanks. Two straight years of 20% increases as I finish up isn't nice.

Because a sure way to keep the price of something down is to subsidize it.

Community College is a very underrated institution. A lot of people that go and hang out at university because it's the "in" thing to do would be much better served with a trade skill

I'm having my doubts about the credibility of Major Universities(Non hard science majors of course) but these local community colleges and degree mills? Come on, I would rather have the billions spent on some kind of free T.V. stations that show educational programming or something. This is just feeding the already outrageous education racket here. This government truly is a one trick pony. Bad form Obama BAD FORM!

Completely agree with the President on this one. Community colleges are perhaps the most cost-effective ways to get higher education. The credits transfer to most 4 year schools, and even many graduate schools recommend community colleges to incoming students who need to make up some undergraduate prerequisites.

Howie Spankowitz: HenryFnord: Can we call them what they are - vocational schools?

Well, since that's not what they are, I would advise against it. I think community college captures the gist.

True--community colleges are like grades 13 & 14. For when you can't get into a real college.

/Went to community college for 1 year because, although I got accepted into the university I wanted, I couldn't get housing that year.
//Besides, since my father was a head of security @ the CC, tuition was free.
///Classes were a joke. Got a 4.0 and never bought a book.

letdown102: Completely agree with the President on this one. Community colleges are perhaps the most cost-effective ways to get higher education. The credits transfer to most 4 year schools, and even many graduate schools recommend community colleges to incoming students who need to make up some undergraduate prerequisites.

Nail. Head.

All of you denigrating CC's as "degree mills" or somehow not being "real" college are beyond ignorant. Look at the transfer stats to four year colleges from CC's in California. Most of these students might not have had an opportunity to go to college if not for CC's.

Bored Horde: Community College is a very underrated institution. A lot of people that go and hang out at university because it's the "in" thing to do would be much better served with a trade skill

Absolutely. In fact, I've often advocated letting kids who are so inclined to trade off the last two years of high school for some serious vo-tech training to learn a skilled trade. A certified welder can make way more than a Starbucks barista with a BA in English, anyway.

Death to New Rome: I'm having my doubts about the credibility of Major Universities(Non hard science majors of course) but these local community colleges and degree mills? Come on, I would rather have the billions spent on some kind of free T.V. stations that show educational programming or something. This is just feeding the already outrageous education racket here. This government truly is a one trick pony. Bad form Obama BAD FORM!

so if you're having your doubts about majors, and consider locals bad too ... then where do you feel you get a good education? small private schools that are about 2,000 enrollment and cost 45k a year?

please, subsidizing education is the first thing we need to do to get our country competitive globally again. and some of the best institutions in america are public, major universities.

sure, thousands of idiots slog their way through with a C average and party the whole time, but it's not like they find jobs easily. blame a subsection of america for their behavior, not universities. we need to be more pro-education in our mindsets.

Howie Spankowitz: All of you denigrating CC's as "degree mills" or somehow not being "real" college are beyond ignorant. Look at the transfer stats to four year colleges from CC's in California. Most of these students might not have had an opportunity to go to college if not for CC's.

Yeah, but it's still basically a glorified 13th grade.

brigid_fitch: Howie Spankowitz: HenryFnord: Can we call them what they are - vocational schools?

Well, since that's not what they are, I would advise against it. I think community college captures the gist.

True--community colleges are like grades 13 & 14. For when you can't get into a real college.

/Went to community college for 1 year because, although I got accepted into the university I wanted, I couldn't get housing that year.
//Besides, since my father was a head of security @ the CC, tuition was free.
///Classes were a joke. Got a 4.0 and never bought a book.

Yeah...you went to a shiatty community college. They do exist. You chose a bad one. I have had involvement with CC's as a student, staff person, consultant and United Way exec and have seen first hand the positive impact they have had.

Donald_McRonald: Howie Spankowitz: All of you denigrating CC's as "degree mills" or somehow not being "real" college are beyond ignorant. Look at the transfer stats to four year colleges from CC's in California. Most of these students might not have had an opportunity to go to college if not for CC's.

Yeah, but it's still basically a glorified 13th grade.

Stop spouting cliches and stereotypes. That was funny 15 years ago. Wait...it wasn't funny then, either.

Well Donald_McRonald has one of the most egotistical profiles I've ever seen on Fark, so it's possible that he really does think he's the world expert on college and that it's ivy league or bust.

Howie Spankowitz: Stop spouting cliches and stereotypes. That was funny 15 years ago. Wait...it wasn't funny then, either.

Acutally, it looks like it's going to be very funny this fall:

Bored Horde: Well Donald_McRonald has one of the most egotistical profiles I've ever seen on Fark

You sound like a muppet.

Howie Spankowitz: Yeah...you went to a shiatty community college. They do exist. You chose a bad one. I have had involvement with CC's as a student, staff person, consultant and United Way exec and have seen first hand the positive impact they have had.

Oh, I'm not denying I went to a shiatty CC. I'd never been so bored in my life. But it is true that all my credits transferred w/ease, even if I didn't learn anything.

Hopefully that's changed over the past 20 years since I was there.

WaltzingMathilda: sure, thousands of idiots slog their way through with a C average and party the whole time, but it's not like they find jobs easily. blame a subsection of america for their behavior, not universities. we need to be more pro-education in our mindsets.

As I stated I have great respect for some parts of the U.S. University system they are still the best in the world for hard sciences and such, but from what I have seen the other sides of the school have turned into some kind of a racket. I completely agree with you that America needs to be more pro education in our mindsets but what gets beamed into most of American's brains everyday? That's right our T.V. sets and that is why I said I would rather have some programs introduced that provides educational programming. Some idiot flashing around his online degree in Computa Teknogy and Bizznazzz doesn't impress me and it sure as hell doesn't make me feel confident in the direction our country is heading.

ne2d: Because a sure way to keep the price of something down is to subsidize it.

You clearly aren't aware of how state schools work.

Bored Horde: Well Donald_McRonald has one of the most egotistical profiles I've ever seen on Fark, so it's possible that he really does think he's the world expert on college and that it's ivy league or bust.

I don't see anything egotistical about a 7000 word profile, including "submissions" and "threads I've won."

Death to New Rome: WaltzingMathilda: sure, thousands of idiots slog their way through with a C average and party the whole time, but it's not like they find jobs easily. blame a subsection of america for their behavior, not universities. we need to be more pro-education in our mindsets.

As I stated I have great respect for some parts of the U.S. University system they are still the best in the world for hard sciences and such, but from what I have seen the other sides of the school have turned into some kind of a racket. I completely agree with you that America needs to be more pro education in our mindsets but what gets beamed into most of American's brains everyday? That's right our T.V. sets and that is why I said I would rather have some programs introduced that provides educational programming. Some idiot flashing around his online degree in Computa Teknogy and Bizznazzz doesn't impress me and it sure as hell doesn't make me feel confident in the direction our country is heading.

sure, i guess i took offense at the exception only being for hard sciences as business degrees from great institutions are still very necessary in this country (especially if we're going to crop leaders to keep america economically healthy).

besides, a business degree is a BS isn't it?

/has a BA and a JD from major US unis, feels very educated and a contributing member of society

Howie Spankowitz
Well, since that's not what they are, I would advise against it. I think community college captures the gist.

From TFA it looks like the President's plan includes vocational schools. At least that's what I thought they were referring to by "training certificates: "Community colleges are two-year schools that generally grant associate degrees or training certificates." I could be wrong though.

Nabb1
Absolutely. In fact, I've often advocated letting kids who are so inclined to trade off the last two years of high school for some serious vo-tech training to learn a skilled trade. A certified welder can make way more than a Starbucks barista with a BA in English, anyway.

Certainly we need to be advocates of these schools. Around here the state chain of schools is called Ivy Tech. You can get your tech training there of course. You can also take core curriculum courses there at a low tuition rate then transfer the credits to any public university in the state. The tuition is barely more than half what the university down the street charges.

At any rate, not everyone should be trying to get a traditional four year degree. I certainly agree that some are best served by vocational training.

brigid_fitch: True--community colleges are like grades 13 & 14. For when you can't get into a real college.

Community colleges vary in quality much in the same way 4-year schools do.

While I find that the community college classes I'm taking now are easier than those I took as an undergraduate 10 years ago, it's a far cry from being 13th grade.

And actually, since many more community college instructors are industry professionals rather than theorists, the 'average' student may even be better served by a community college education.

brigid_fitch: Hopefully that's changed over the past 20 years since I was there.

Hey Brig, didn't you you go to Montclair State after CC?
/fellow Montclair State College alumni 81, before it became a university

GAT_00: ne2d: Because a sure way to keep the price of something down is to subsidize it.

You clearly aren't aware of how state schools work.

What exactly did you mean by "dump that into the real [sic] colleges first"?

I took some math courses from my local CC a while back in order to save money at the big Uni I was going to, and I found them to be quite challenging. Not quite what I'd get from the Russians teaching the courses at the 4-year, but enough so that I made it through the pre-req requirements with ease.

The CC system where I am (north san diego county) is pretty strong, and so popular that it's insanely difficult to get a seat unless you're in a degree program. Funny how the market hasn't made up for this apparently very high demand and limited supply.

America needs more ditch diggers too.

i make more money and have a better job than all of the people i know who have 4 year degrees. that said, most of the people who go to cc's are idiots.

WaltzingMathilda: Death to New Rome: WaltzingMathilda: sure, thousands of idiots slog their way through with a C average and party the whole time, but it's not like they find jobs easily. blame a subsection of america for their behavior, not universities. we need to be more pro-education in our mindsets.

As I stated I have great respect for some parts of the U.S. University system they are still the best in the world for hard sciences and such, but from what I have seen the other sides of the school have turned into some kind of a racket. I completely agree with you that America needs to be more pro education in our mindsets but what gets beamed into most of American's brains everyday? That's right our T.V. sets and that is why I said I would rather have some programs introduced that provides educational programming. Some idiot flashing around his online degree in Computa Teknogy and Bizznazzz doesn't impress me and it sure as hell doesn't make me feel confident in the direction our country is heading.

sure, i guess i took offense at the exception only being for hard sciences as business degrees from great institutions are still very necessary in this country (especially if we're going to crop leaders to keep america economically healthy).

besides, a business degree is a BS isn't it?

/has a BA and a JD from major US unis, feels very educated and a contributing member of society

Great, can you represent me on my future public drunkenness charge this weekend in CT? I'm going to a 3-day party and I'd like to know I have legal representation beforehand. I can pay a retainer of a 22-oz bottle of Southern Tier Iniquity Black Ale.

doublesecretprobation: that said, most of the people who go to cc's are idiots.

I know many people who went to community college for a year or two to stock up on transferable credits as a cheaper alternative to taking the plunge at a university for four years. Like many things, it is what you make of it.

cameroncrazy1984: Great, can you represent me on my future public drunkenness charge this weekend in CT? I'm going to a 3-day party and I'd like to know I have legal representation beforehand. I can pay a retainer of a 22-oz bottle of Southern Tier Iniquity Black Ale.

since i'm a transactional attorney, i probably don't command much more than a bottle of beer as a retainer for a criminal case.

Nabb1: doublesecretprobation: that said, most of the people who go to cc's are idiots.

I know many people who went to community college for a year or two to stock up on transferable credits as a cheaper alternative to taking the plunge at a university for four years. Like many things, it is what you make of it.

I did this many years ago and only had about 5 credits not transfer to the University - I took those 5 non-transferable credits for my A.A. degree.

cameroncrazy1984: Great, can you represent me on my future public drunkenness charge this weekend in CT? I'm going to a 3-day party and I'd like to know I have legal representation beforehand. I can pay a retainer of a 22-oz bottle of Southern Tier Iniquity Black Ale.

Paying a lawyer with alcohol for a public drunkenness charge...

Oh, and Community Colleges aren't so bad. I went to a 4 year university but probably wouldn't have graduated in 4 years if I didn't take some of my core classes at a CC. Switching from Electrical Engineering to Business Computer Systems and then to a Math degree gives you a few classes you don't end up needing.

Though I do wish I went to a CC my first year or two. It would have given me a cheap way to figure out what profession I wanted to pursue.

Howie Spankowitz: I wouldn't have been the first member of my entire family to graduate from college if it weren't for CC.

If it weren't for my horse, I would have never spent that year in college.

CC's are a great transition step for those who graduate from a sub-standard high school that didn't exactly do a good job of teaching many of the basics. You know, like pre-calc algebra.

I would give that headline nine marx out of ten.

Hopefully, my SO will receive a pay raise because of this.

/She works at a CC.

I can't believe that bastard is putting this money into education when it could be used to kill people.

Our local CC is so bad we call it Montgomery Kollege. Maybe it's different other places.

Nabb1: "Communisty Colleges"? Ugh...

Oh come on, I chuckled.

My wife went for two years to CC, got her BA at a state school and her Masters from a private school. She now teaches at a CC. She contends that CC instructors care more than any other professors she'd had during her years in school. So, now she's one of them. CC is just like anything else, you get out what you put in.

letdown102: Completely agree with the President on this one. Community colleges are perhaps the most cost-effective ways to get higher education. The credits transfer to most 4 year schools, and even many graduate schools recommend community colleges to incoming students who need to make up some undergraduate prerequisites.

Completely agree. I knew some people in high school who didn't get into their college of choice, so they went to CC, did extremely well and eventually transferred. Definitely a good thing. I mean look at Rudy.

Nabb1: Bored Horde: Community College is a very underrated institution. A lot of people that go and hang out at university because it's the "in" thing to do would be much better served with a trade skill

Absolutely. In fact, I've often advocated letting kids who are so inclined to trade off the last two years of high school for some serious vo-tech training to learn a skilled trade. A certified welder can make way more than a Starbucks barista with a BA in English, anyway.

In Mexico and other countries they do that, you get into trade school instead of HS.

some thousand dollars and two years later a friend of mine is sitting in a pretty sweet position... another friend, after 4 years and tens of thousands of dollars in student loans, is working part-time at the same job I got with no higher education at all.

I'd say I'm a bit biased for the community colleges.

Great just when i left a community college and went to a university

The Madd Man: Our local CC is so bad we call it Montgomery Kollege. Maybe it's different other places.

Not really. But the foundation to create something great is there. THIS is why I voted for the man.

Not sure how the community college system is in other states, but in California they're pretty amazing and cheap for residents. There's no reason to go to a state or university to get the two years of general ed out of the way. Best ever comp sci class was at a community college due to an amazing teacher who was actually part time.

Donald_McRonald: Howie Spankowitz: All of you denigrating CC's as "degree mills" or somehow not being "real" college are beyond ignorant. Look at the transfer stats to four year colleges from CC's in California. Most of these students might not have had an opportunity to go to college if not for CC's.

Yeah, but it's still basically a glorified 13th grade.


So is the first year at most Universities.

The Madd Man: Our local CC is so bad we call it Montgomery Kollege. Maybe it's different other places.

Most local colleges seem to have funny names, "Cowpie high" and the Harvard on the Hill" (come for the food, stay for the education) are two in my area.

Actually they are pretty decent 2 year colleges in the UW system that are introducing 4 year degrees. They are not trade schools but rather an intro for people to continue to a full university elsewhere. They do rather well at that. Plus credits are (or atleast were) quite inexpensive.

Insert_Obscure_80's_Pop_Culture_Reference_Here: My wife went for two years to CC, got her BA at a state school and her Masters from a private school. She now teaches at a CC. She contends that CC instructors care more than any other professors she'd had during her years in school. So, now she's one of them. CC is just like anything else, you get out what you put in.

He may not have the Fields medal, but he was wicked smaht...

Howie Spankowitz: I have long believed community colleges to be one of the most underrated economic engines in the country. It's also one of our most democratic institutions. I wouldn't have been the first member of my entire family to graduate from college if it weren't for CC.

CC's are government services at their most cost-effective and best.

I received a pretty decent education at a community college originally built by the WPA. Oh well.

Of course, my education at Arizona State is a whole different matter.

beve: I would give that headline nine marx Marks out of ten.

Pet peave.

/(T)Rotsky

Depends what you go to college for. CCs have their own moronic useless disciplines on par with the Liberal Arts degrees of university, but with none of the prestige.

On the other hand, a diploma and apprenticeship in plumbing or a similar trade will net you a good job in the real world.

Howie Spankowitz: I have long believed community colleges to be one of the most underrated economic engines in the country. It's also one of our most democratic institutions. I wouldn't have been the first member of my entire family to graduate from college if it weren't for CC.

I agree!

/first generation college student
//yay for City Colleges of Chicago @$33 a credit hour many years ago. For all their faults, they were a big help, and all their credits transferred.
///working my second Master's degree on the employer's dime

Obama pumps billions into Communisty Colleges anything and everything

Howie Spankowitz: I have long believed community colleges to be one of the most underrated economic engines in the country. It's also one of our most democratic institutions. I wouldn't have been the first member of my entire family to graduate from college if it weren't for CC.

CC's are government services at their most cost-effective and best.

I agree that CCs fill a needed role and provide good education for a low cost. If only they weren't needed so badly to fix the mistakes that never should have graduated from high school... it's one thing to give somebody a good junior college education that they might not have afforded otherwise; quite another to spend a lot of time dealing with illiterates whose HS diploma ink isn't even dry yet.

I was 16 when I graduated high school and went to college. I went to a community college 5 hours away (the only CC in Arizona with dorms and functions like a 4-year college). ASU and UA would have chewed me up and spit me out when I was 16. I'm glad I started where I did. My classes were small and I got one-on-one attention from actual professors, not TAs.

Tuition was $314 a semester for a full load. My biggest expense was housing. Community colleges are great. Your experience depends on how much work you're willing to put in.

HenryFnord: Can we call them what they are - vocational schools?

High School Part II

Nabb1: "Communisty Colleges Indoctrination Centers"? Ugh...

FTFY

You know you were thinking it.

I support Obama. Anyone has to be better than the 8 years we suffered under Adolf Bush.

Nabb1: doublesecretprobation: that said, most of the people who go to cc's are idiots.

I know many people who went to community college for a year or two to stock up on transferable credits as a cheaper alternative to taking the plunge at a university for four years. Like many things, it is what you make of it.

THIS.

If your college education was not expensive, then it is worthless.

"Yes, I received my degree in GhettoCity Community College"

"Thank you for coming, NEXT"

...to boost community colleges and propel the United States toward his goal of having the highest proportion of college graduates in the world by 2020...

It's gonna be hard to match Cuba's 97%

DarthBrooks: America needs more ditch diggers too.

First, your joke attempt is stupid - voc schools and community colleges train people for manufacturing and service industries. Ditch digging needs no training.

Second, American most certainly does not need more ditch diggers. An undereducated population is what leads to towns like Flint, where the local assembly line closes and thousands of people are out of work with no marketable skills. Then you get crap like bailouts, tax subsidies for non-profitable businesses, "Buy America" slogans, all to preserve local manufacturing which should be outsourced.
What America needs is a large number of adequately-educated service industry workers, supporting a large number of highly-educated researchers, innovators, scientists, inventors, etc. We outsource our manufacturing to places it can be done cheaper, and sell older technologies while staying far ahead ourselves. It's like the Bill Hicks joke - sell Iraq the technology for the Scud missile, once we develop Scud Repellent.

The only manufacturing that should be done in this country is very low-grade stuff, where shipping it would eat up any profit margin; and very high-grade stuff, where you don't want the manufacturing technology in anyone else's hands.

elchip: Howie Spankowitz: I wouldn't have been the first member of my entire family to graduate from college if it weren't for CC.

If it weren't for my horse, I would have never spent that year in college.

Came for this, leaving very satisfied.

It was my experience that CC courses were sometines more difficult than their 4-year equivalents. Just think, same subject matter, same text books, same time frame to cover material, and then add in an instructor that cannot get picked up by a 4-year school.

Don't get me wrong, there are some amazing professionals that really know their stuff teaching some of these courses. But if you get some wannabe professor that barely understands the material and/or somebody that just can't teach, you could be in trouble. It is a craps shoot.

HenryFnord: Can we call them what they are - vocational schools?

No. A community college just means two-year student tenures. It's sometimes for vocational associate's degrees, sure, but just as often it's simply the first two years of a bachelor's, typically for the purpose of covering the gen ed requirements of a real school.

CaKeY: ...to boost community colleges and propel the United States toward his goal of having the highest proportion of college graduates in the world by 2020...

It's gonna be hard to match Cuba's 97%

Isn't the 97% cuba's literacy rates not college graduate rates?

Theaetetus: Ditch digging needs no training.

Sounds like you've been settling for poorly-dug ditches.

I absolutely loved going to Community College. I was able to work full time and actually try to figure out what I wanted to do. My CC had a great computer program (partly funded by Cisco with a great lab) and the teachers were usually retired professionals.

BlorfMaster: If your college education was not expensive, then it is worthless.

"Yes, I received my degree in GhettoCity Community College"

"Thank you for coming, NEXT"

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not, but the sad part is that is actually true. If you're learning a trade it's great. However, if you're trying to earn a business degree, going to a CC as opposed to an accredited will put you at a severe disadvantage...

What a Communisty College might look like.:

Spent 3 years and 200 credits in community college before moving on to University. 80% of that was covered by taxpayers as part of Running Start, since I skipped the last two years of High School. They allowed me to take 18 credits a quarter (including summers).

By the time I left CC, I had an associates degree, pre-professional in radio broadcasting, certified MIG, TIG and Oxy Welder, and an ASE certified auto electrician.

I found that the quality of instruction was much higher in community college, since the class sizes were smaller, and most of the instructors are working professionals in their industry, vs. University professors who have been in purely academia for 15-20 years.

What doesn't Obama want to pump billions into?

Because this is exactly the answer. Milk as much money as possible from, people in exchange for the hope of additional income that never comes. At the end all you have is a worthless piece of paper and more debt...SURPRISE!

There may be a way to a more educated population but community colleges and most Universities are not it anymore. Excluding trade schools, most colleges teach crap that no one will ever need for future employment. Ever. Ever. Ever.

Biggest fraud ever perpetrated on the American People.

Government is the reason 4 year universities cost so damn much. How much more money do CC's need? You take a few 101s and 102s and you have an Associates in Business Administration.

Congrats!

/sarcasm

I teach a community college class. My first peer review said "Ease up on the requirements, after all this is a community college, not a university." Is it the mindset that community college is a dumbed down college education? Things like my experience don't help the reputation.

Jim_Callahan: HenryFnord: Can we call them what they are - vocational schools?

No. A community college just means two-year student tenures. It's sometimes for vocational associate's degrees, sure, but just as often it's simply the first two years of a bachelor's, typically for the purpose of covering the gen ed requirements of a real school.

That is how I always have heard the term used but wasn't sure if that was considered standard or perhaps just a regional thing.

greycoat: I support Obama. Anyone has to be better than the 8 years we suffered under Adolf Bush.

ne2d: I don't see anything egotistical about a 7000 word profile, including "submissions" and "threads I've won."

Well, that made me go look at the profile...

Wow. Guess what, Donald_McRonald... nobody - NOBODY - cares about that shiat on your profile but you. Yet in your little world, you actually believe they do. Amazing.

CC's are one of the best dollar-for-dollar investments we can make. Being against fully funding technical education is like living on top of a gold mine and being too cheap to buy a shovel. Every industry leader in the country should be jumping up and down in support for this program.

Horrible news.

Educating the poor results in empowered liberals.

I had to interview IT tech candidates a couple of years back. It was a parade of feebs, but the folks with "Information Systems" degrees from the local CC really stood out in terms of technical ignorance, outright stupidity, and smug.

/maybe things are different in other areas
//maybe it was just a bad batch of interviewees
///the guy I ended up hiring lasted two weeks before he brought down the firewall trying to open a port for yahoo messenger so he could voice chat with his wife

I've got two 2-year degrees myself. I went to a 4 year college first, and they had some of the worst teachers I've ever met, which was apparently all they thought freshmen rated.

Perhaps going back for a 4 year degree would be nice, but I'd have to stop working again to do that.

"Obama pumps billions into Communisty Colleges"

Too bad it wasn't brazillians!

tweekster: CaKeY: ...to boost community colleges and propel the United States toward his goal of having the highest proportion of college graduates in the world by 2020...

It's gonna be hard to match Cuba's 97%

Isn't the 97% cuba's literacy rates not college graduate rates?

It's actually the HS graduation rate. Still impressive.

Community college is awesome. When I went here in SoCal a unit cost $10, so full time tuition cost me $120 a semester. When I finished all my prerequisites I transferred to a CSU that cost me $248 per semester at first, and was up to $428 when I graduated. Cheapest Bachelor's degree around, at least then.

And in my first job we had a USC grad and a CalTech grad; the USC guy made $10/week more than me, the CalTech degree was worth an extra $20/week.

including artificial intelligence tutoring and multimedia courses, Kvaal said

Great. They'll pay for HAL to go back to school, but I'm SOL.

I hated it while I was there, but community college is perhaps the best thing I ever did. Besides the lower costs, it gave me a greater sense of responsibility and time management. I don't think I could have handled myself going into a four-year university right out of high school, given all the booze and poon one can find there.

Considering the community college I went to is now a 4-year-college offering BAs and BSes, there must be some CCs with the foundation to properly educate students. At the very least, it was useful for me to take my 100/200 level courses there, as it was preferable to deal with bad profs and dropping courses at 300 dollars a course vs. 1000+ at the nearest state school. Oh, actually getting professors rather than TAs that may or may not speak English, and getting class sizes consistently below 40 was useful as well.

/of course, I do wonder how much the 300/400 level credits will run now that they are a 4-year.
//currently working for a tech startup before taking my transfer degree to one of the 9 colleges that accepted me.

MrSteve007: Spent 3 years and 200 credits in community college before moving on to University. 80% of that was covered by taxpayers as part of Running Start, since I skipped the last two years of High School. They allowed me to take 18 credits a quarter (including summers).

I did this my last semester of high school, same program but a different name. Very good experience.

My high school hated that program because they would get to count everyone that graduated early as a student for the last semester. (ie keeping roughly 50K in state funds) Meanwhile a dozen or so of them would go to the community college and pay out of pocket. I think I was the first one to utilize the program in years. I made sure everyone I knew that was a senior was aware of that program.

Community Colleges are one of the last shelters of the liberal arts education in America: full-time professors who care more about their students than their next obscure book, absolute academic freedom, and hard-working students who know they are up against the C students at Yale.

In high school I looked down on community colleges as not "real" schools. Then I took a summer math course at the local CC before entering college. It was extremely good. The content of that one course was equivalent to three of the watered-down courses offered by the R1 flagship university I later attended. Of course, they had to be all snobby about the CC and wouldn't accept transfer credit for more than one of those three.

Money for community colleges is all well and good, but where is the money coming from? The feds are $11+ trillion in debt.

Should we really be spending more money we don't have?

I'ma get my learn on!

HenryFnord: Can we call them what they are - vocational schools?the best financial move you can manke

Load up on the cheap credits and transfer to a four year school. Save you a freaking mint.

Ok, so now not only do I get to pay for other people's health care, I also get to pay for other people to go to college?

Can't I just adopt a poor ghetto child and call it a day?

Theaetetus: First, your joke attempt is stupid - voc schools and community colleges train people for manufacturing and service industries. Ditch digging needs no training.

Let me guess: Community College graduate?

Or maybe you just didn't understand the deep complexities and social commentary of Caddyshack.

I neber gradumicated from da commmunsity colledge dat I goed two. And i'd turnned outs jest guud. I donst no y dey kneed anyting.

I am for this, although what needs to be done even more is to fix secondary education in the US. If community college can serve as a place where students get some education that brings them to where they really should have been after graduating with a decent GPA at a decent high school (without grade inflation etc.) then I am for it. Many of the students I encounter (I'm a meteorology professor at a state school) are so absolutely unprepared for college that it blows my mind. When you think of how much money they are spending to slog through in 5 or 6 years with a sub 2.5 GPA you want to cry. And yet, the push in the US is to send every bloody student through college like it's going to solve all of our problems.

Many "good" colleges/universities are MORE than happy to keep these kids in school knowing full well that they degree they end up with may be nearly worthless. Attrition is considered a bad thing when I consider it to be a good thing because college is not the special olympics where "everyone wins." Standards can't continue to be lowered (grades continue to be inflated) in order to accommodate the product of a failed primary/secondary education system. But that's what happens.

I can see many 4 year schools crapping their pants over this because it will indeed pull revenue from them. Such is life, I suppose. I just want you bastards to think critically and actually put some effort into learning beyond cramming for four hours before a test....

August11: and hard-working students who know they are up against the C students at Yale.

I don't know if they have Presidential abitions...

I love you recycled Cold Warriors who still see RED everywhere.
Godless Commies are everywhere aren't they? Watching you folks
pine for the days when you could trot off to Vietnam to kill
a few is just terrible. Going off to the sandbox just isn't fun
enough so NeoCons & Rush Limbaugh prefer staying home. Plenty
of Cheetos here and it's so comfy to blog about pretend Communists are keeping you down. If it weren't for the secret Communist conspiracy America would be paradise!

Came for the ignorant, derisive comments from Farkers who spent too much money on 4 year "real universities" for an education you coulda got for $1.50 in late charges at the public library.

Leaving very satisfied.

Good.

Lets start retraining people who got paid all these ridicules benefits for jobs that could have been automated by machines 50 years ago. There's a reason Japan's auto industry moves so well... much better automation, lower error rates, less employees, no insane union benefits.

Start retraining for new jobs. Can't live on government cheese forever.

Education should be a mandatory part of getting unemployment benefits. Should require X hrs of training or education per week to qualify. That would help the many who spend months of "I can't find anyone who will hire me with my skills". And get them off of Uncle Sam's wallet quicker.

AMBITIONS.

Dammit...I need coffee. And preview.

Rockdrummer: I teach a community college class. My first peer review said "Ease up on the requirements, after all this is a community college, not a university." Is it the mindset that community college is a dumbed down college education? Things like my experience don't help the reputation.

I took astronomy as a science requirement in both a community college and a major university.

Community college: learn the name of the planets, go to the planetarium and look at the pretty stars. Watch a few 'NOVA' episodes'.

University Level College: Learn Kepler's law and calculate the orbits of various planets. Learn Newtonian physics and calculate various things. Exams were almost all math.

HUGE difference.

TFA: propel the United States toward his goal of having the highest proportion of college graduates in the world by 2020

Undergrad degrees are so 1990s. Masters is the new undergrad.

Communisty colleges? What is this? Farx news?

More resources for underachievers!

Just got my A.A. from one of the best CC's in the country. Every teacher there has at least a masters, but most of my professors were "Dr.s".

My last English professor previously taught at Columbia U, U of Delaware, and U of Michigan, came to my school temporarily and ended up staying permanently because he loves it.

CC's rock. Same education at a fraction of the price.

Theaetetus: Ditch digging needs no training.

No training, my ass, college boy. As a fully-trained and licensed ditch digger, I resent your dismissive attitude of my highly skilled profession. I could dig your name into the front lawn of your house...in calligraphy.

It's a good idea, now we need somewhere for them to work after they learn a trade.

I did CC for two years. Got my AA and transferred to USF as a junior.

I saved $20/credit hour by going that route. That's $1200 saved on tuition plus the thousands I saved by living at home for those 2 years.

brnt00: Masters is the new undergrad.

For reals. It's why I'm getting an MBA despite having no real interest in the material.

My CC classes were harder than the equivalent university classes. At the CC, half the class failed every class, so at the end of the class, the professor had no motivation to curve grades because expectations are so low. At the university, every lower division class had an army or students begging the professor to curve, and they almost always did.

Also, calc2 was way harder at the CC, and covered more material.

BlorfMaster: University Level College: Learn Kepler's law and calculate the orbits of various planets. Learn Newtonian physics and calculate various things. Exams were almost all math.

Weird. I took Astronomy 2 at a CC, plenty of math, pulsars and sush.. Astronomy 1, pretty lights.

Confessions of a Community College Dean is a good blog to follow if you're interested in a CC's perspective on the role of CC's in higher education.

Arklop: No training, my ass, college boy. As a fully-trained and licensed ditch digger, I resent your dismissive attitude of my highly skilled profession. I could dig your name into the front lawn of your house...in calligraphy.

Can you run a Zaug?

brimstoner: Communisty colleges? What is this? Farx news?

It does seem a bit anti-education for the Main page..

IXI Jim IXI: BlorfMaster: University Level College: Learn Kepler's law and calculate the orbits of various planets. Learn Newtonian physics and calculate various things. Exams were almost all math.

Weird. I took Astronomy 2 at a CC, plenty of math, pulsars and sush.. Astronomy 1, pretty lights.

Astro 1 was all math depending on what semester you took it at my CC. The other semester was lab

Cajonian: That was my experience too (see post above). It might depend on the prof or school, though.

BlorfMaster: Rockdrummer: I teach a community college class. My first peer review said "Ease up on the requirements, after all this is a community college, not a university." Is it the mindset that community college is a dumbed down college education? Things like my experience don't help the reputation.

I took astronomy as a science requirement in both a community college and a major university.

Community college: learn the name of the planets, go to the planetarium and look at the pretty stars. Watch a few 'NOVA' episodes'.

University Level College: Learn Kepler's law and calculate the orbits of various planets. Learn Newtonian physics and calculate various things. Exams were almost all math.

HUGE difference.

But, if you didn't know what the CC taught you, then you CERTAINLY would not know what to do once you got the university level exam. It did exactly what it was supposed to do...prepare you. Oh, and let me know the next time you make a single dollar for knowing Newtonian physics, outside of a classroom.

The_Sponge: - Chris Rock

A real beacon of intellectual thought that one.

Bored Horde: Well Donald_McRonald has one of the most egotistical profiles I've ever seen on Fark

Seriously, the guys got a book in there. Dude really, its the Farkin internet. Noone gives a shiat.

Bad headline, subby!

KOLLEJE IS KOMMUNIST!

AAAIIIEEEGGHH MUST SMASH UHLEETIST SMART PEEPUL!!!

Yep.

Let's denigrate it just a little more with a
lame-arse joke a six-year-old kid could make.

All of you putting down 2-year, public colleges really need to re-assess your belief that everyone who could, should go to a traditional 4-year institution. Community colleges and for-profit colleges (ITT / U of Phoenix) are the ones training your nurses, lab techs, mechanic, HVAC repairman, plumber, electrician, paralegals, etc. I could go on and on; the list of jobs they train for is mindnumbing. The fact of the matter is that over 50% of the jobs in the world do not need a 4-year college education.

These schools have tremendous job placement rates. Don't believe me? For-profit ed providers (ITT / UofP / Lincoln) are mandated to provide this data to the govt (including starting salaries) or they can't participate in Federal lending programs to the students. Show me any 4-year college that will publish that hard data. Fact of the matter is they won't.

Community colleges provide a necessary service at a cheap cost, and it represents a sector that has been shunned and ridiculed for decades while the economy has boomed. Now that the market is turning around and traditional 4-year students are having difficulty finding jobs, we are beginning to realize that we've been overeducating below average individuals who would have been better served with a 2-year degree and less student debt.

Some base facts (I teach and admin at at CC in TX.):
--80% of our students come in needing remediation in one or more core subject areas. (50% of Texans are dropping out. How's that workforce gonna help?)

--90% of the students at my CC are defined at "high risk" (1st generation college students, Pell grant or minority students)
--My institution grants more degrees and certificates to this population than any school in Texas, whether it be Univeristy or CC.

--CCs are the only educational institutions with the ability to react to the demands of the workplace and community quickly and efficiently. For instance, when Katrina knocked some 40,000 students offline at Delgado CC in New Orleans, the college was able to institute distance learning classes within 2 weeks, and retain 75% of those students. The others were taken on by Houston CC and other CCs in Texas.

--CCs ask faculty to concentrate on teaching first, and research second. We give the best individual attention to our students. This summer, for instance, one of my students told me that my class was the first class below 250 she'd ever attended in college. She had never even been talked to by a professor.

While many Americans sell us short, I'm glad the President isn't willing to do so.

tweekster: Astro 1 was all math depending on what semester you took it at my CC. The other semester was lab

It must've been the way they divided ours up. I was the solar system, II was galaxies and such. We did a little math in I...orbits and such. II was working with wavelengths and crap like that.

Beat cutting up frogs.

Truth is if you are motivated and you work hard it's almost irrelevant whether you do CC first. It is indeed what you make of it. If you are shrewd you can save a lot of money doing the CC for a lot of the courses outside of your major.

However (complete speculation) I would presume Obama is doing this to provide access to higher education to more students who wouldn't otherwise have it. One may assume that these students will probably struggle if they go straight into a 4 year school, or would not be accepted. If they get their shiat together at CC then they will likely be much more likely to succeed at a 4 year school, and everybody wins.

President Barack Obama will unveil a $12 billion initiative on Tuesday to boost community colleges and propel the United States toward his goal of having the highest proportion of college graduates in the world by 2020, administration officials said.


If Obama attended our public schools instead of a private, he would understand that this is not possible.

Best school I went to was a CC. University was just looking for a new fee to prop up their semi-professional sports team. Then there's private college, which I experienced as the worst of CC and State University combined.

fireclown: HenryFnord: Can we call them what they are - vocational schools?the best financial move you can manke

Load up on the cheap credits and transfer to a four year school. Save you a freaking mint.

THISTHISTHIS

I did that; the CC near my hometown had an engineering transfer program with the state's best engineering university, where the CC provided the first two years of engineering courses and they transferred directly to the university. It cost me a fraction of the money to get through those first two years compared to going to a 4 year university, and I had just as good a preparation for my junior and senior years as those who went the full 4 years.

My wife got her associates degree in computer aided drafting and technology (basically a civil engineering technician's degree) and was immediately snapped up by a local engineering firm. Those graduates got a tailor-made education in what the PEF's and DOT needed for technicians, and it's a very popular curriculum.

Anyone who says a CC is nothing more than extended high school has never attended one, and is sadly ignorant about how much value they provide to the local job market. Nursing, CAD training, education and surveying are all taught at CC's.

Unshavenhelga: --80% of our students come in needing remediation in one or more core subject areas. (50% of Texans are dropping out. How's that workforce gonna help?)

When they reach that first question, "How old is the universe?", that probably weeds out a few right there.

Yea, keep on spending. It's not like this country is running the largest deficit in the history of the world. I think Obama needs to go to one of these colleges. It probably wouldn't hurt if freshened up on basic economics first. You know, the basics you learn in middle school.

snakedriver: community college is like a disco with books
gonna get my learn on!!

You know why they call it community college? Because anyone in the community can go. Crack head, Prostitute.

AS from Community College
BS from 4-year university.

One year at the Univ. cost me more than my entire AS at CC.

I'm pro CommCollege. The people who make fun of them are the people who think they're doing fine on their high school diploma. It's easy to mock something you know nothing about.

Bendal: Anyone who says a CC is nothing more than extended high school has never attended one, and is sadly ignorant about how much value they provide to the local job market. Nursing, CAD training, education and surveying are all taught at CC's.

Just be careful how your credits transfer to the school you're looking at. I was pissed as all hell when I slogged through civil war history just to watch it transfer as an elective.

Fatslave: What doesn't Obama want to pump billions into?

Your mom, but she already had billions pumped into her.

/giggity

Arnold T Pants: It's not like this country is running the largest deficit in the history of the world.

Well, it's not.

Arnold T Pants: Yea, keep on spending. It's not like this country is running the largest deficit in the history of the world. I think Obama needs to go to one of these colleges. It probably wouldn't hurt if freshened up on basic economics first. You know, the basics you learn in middle school.

Like how an educated workforce will pay more in taxes?

IXI Jim IXI

It must've been the way they divided ours up. I was the solar system


Geez, look at the ego on this guy.


:-)

The only people who deserve a decent education are the kids smart enough to be born to parents who got rich through war profiteering or raping 401ks.

Commies!


/once had a GA Tech Engineering grad working for me
//dumb farker was doing pullups on a door frame
///molding fell and he cut his arm pretty bad
////guess they didn't cover that at GT

doublesecretprobation: i make more money and have a better job than all of the people i know who have 4 year degrees. that said, most of the people who go to cc's are idiots.

Unless you work some tiny subsector of U.S. employment (building motorcycles?) or are self employed, more than likely you will find that lack of a degree a major impediment to career progression and those people you know will soon vastly outpace you in salary. Virtually every bureaucracy in existence now uses a Bachelors degree, regardless of major, as a sweeping barrier in employment and promotional considerations.

True a self taught welder can make a significant upper middle class income, but who becomes the floor manager after 10 years in employment? The one who got that Business Management degree at bob's of college of knowledge. In fact, higher educational pursuits are used to weed out applicants at every stage of career advancement. It only makes sense to knock out the minimum requirement at such a young stage in life prior to entry in the workforce.

There are exceptions to the rule, but it makes sense for one aspiring to something other than "rock star" to cover one's bases and prepare for the requisites most often faced by the general working public.

When all else fails, buy the next election with bread and circuses.

Beware the vociferous pro-CC Farkers on here- they can get downright nasty in defense of their degrees.

That said, I support CC in terms of training for a vocational degree. Otherwise, you're putting yourself at a severe disadvantage (I'm looking at you, Business Admin majors). At least, that's the consensus of the CC attendees that I know. Employers look at transcripts, and can be pretty judgmental about people with CC credits & degrees (fairness aside). I'm not surprised that there are some successful Farkers that went to CC's, based on the general population here. In the real world, I'm guessing there's a greater proportion of people that wanted the easiest route for a degree (again, not talking about vocational stuff).

/Calm down
//Never met anyone in real life that thought CC classes were more than a joke

IXI Jim IXI: Bendal: Anyone who says a CC is nothing more than extended high school has never attended one, and is sadly ignorant about how much value they provide to the local job market. Nursing, CAD training, education and surveying are all taught at CC's.

Just be careful how your credits transfer to the school you're looking at. I was pissed as all hell when I slogged through civil war history just to watch it transfer as an elective.


That is the issue with CCs, you have to ensure that all the credits are able to transfer to the university you are going to.

I was able to pay for my 4 years at good ole PU by working 3 jobs, delivering papers and selling pencils on the street corner. That is why I make eleventy jillion dollars a year, and teh Community College kids have to fight Mexican day laborers for a spot in front of Home Depot. Can I join the Internet Bootstrappy Farkers Club?

Englebert Slaptyback: IXI Jim IXI

It must've been the way they divided ours up. I was the solar system


Geez, look at the ego on this guy.


:-)

LMFAO! That was great...

Obama wants more college grads so more people get better jobs and can pay more income tax.

wee beastie: All of you putting down 2-year, public colleges really need to re-assess your belief that everyone who could, should go to a traditional 4-year institution. Community colleges and for-profit colleges (ITT / U of Phoenix) are the ones training your nurses, lab techs, mechanic, HVAC repairman, plumber, electrician, paralegals, etc. I could go on and on; the list of jobs they train for is mindnumbing. The fact of the matter is that over 50% of the jobs in the world do not need a 4-year college education.

These schools have tremendous job placement rates. Don't believe me? For-profit ed providers (ITT / UofP / Lincoln) are mandated to provide this data to the govt (including starting salaries) or they can't participate in Federal lending programs to the students. Show me any 4-year college that will publish that hard data. Fact of the matter is they won't.

Community colleges provide a necessary service at a cheap cost, and it represents a sector that has been shunned and ridiculed for decades while the economy has boomed. Now that the market is turning around and traditional 4-year students are having difficulty finding jobs, we are beginning to realize that we've been overeducating below average individuals who would have been better served with a 2-year degree and less student debt.

U of Phoenix is a joke. Anyone that is hiring will not so much as look at a U of Phoenix graduate. Try getting an engineering degree there and then telling other engineers that you are also an engineer. You will be laughed at.

I agree with a lot of your post, but that school scams the poor and ignorant into taking out student loans for worthless degrees.

Difference is when I graduated from community college with my nursing degree, I had NO DEBT OR STUDENT LOANS and I get paid as much as a four year nurse. The difference? I didn't have the time to get manicures between busting my behind in class and busting my behind in clinicals.

And oh, that's right, the waiting list to get into my alma mater's nursing school is longer than ANY SCHOOL IN THE TRISTATE AREA because it's ranked as one of the most competitive programs AND has one of the highest passing rate for the NCLEX (nursing license test) in the state.

Community College: Three times more for three times less.

Wow. It's great to see so many people with positive experiences and comments about CCs. Um. There's absolutely nothing for me to biatch about. Hm.

/twiddles thumbs

sboyle1020: letdown102: Completely agree with the President on this one. Community colleges are perhaps the most cost-effective ways to get higher education. The credits transfer to most 4 year schools, and even many graduate schools recommend community colleges to incoming students who need to make up some undergraduate prerequisites.

Completely agree. I knew some people in high school who didn't get into their college of choice, so they went to CC, did extremely well and eventually transferred. Definitely a good thing. I mean look at Rudy.

THIS. I'm writing this post from a community college so I'm really getting a kick...

I've been teaching at the CC for years, and they are highly underrated and should be pushed as much as possible. At the Community College you get people who like to teach and actually care that their students learn. Some places suck, that's true, but many outclass the far more expensive 4 year universities.

Too many people think that going to a community college is a defeat of some sort. Not enough High Schools promote it as an option, wanting to boost the numbers of graduates going to "real" colleges. As a result, students who aren't ready for a 4-year wind up failing out and spending a lot of money. A CC is more economical and a better in-between ground for many students.

/The Ivy Leagues can suck it.

Community College IS 13th grade. But who said that's a bad thing?

Our school system generates a lot of high school graduates who lack the requisite skills to enter the skilled workforce or continue on to a 4-year college program. Community colleges are a convenient and efficient way for those grads to develop their abilities.

The financial benefits for capable but low-income students are notable, too. My stepmother went from high school dropout to PhD, and community college was part of how that was possible.

Also, community college saved MY ass when the time came for my university graduation. Curriculum changes left me 1/2 credit short of the requirements, but I was able to get transfer credit for a Pascal programming course I had taken one summer many years earlier, despite the CS courses at the university being taught in Java by then.

Arklop: As a fully-trained and licensed ditch digger, I resent your dismissive attitude of my highly skilled profession.

Shenanigans. If you were really fully licensed, you'd be using the official title as adopted by the trade organization: Certified Soil Displacement Engineer.

/or "CSDE" for short

DROxINxTHExWIND: BlorfMaster: Rockdrummer: I teach a community college class. My first peer review said "Ease up on the requirements, after all this is a community college, not a university." Is it the mindset that community college is a dumbed down college education? Things like my experience don't help the reputation.

I took astronomy as a science requirement in both a community college and a major university.

Community college: learn the name of the planets, go to the planetarium and look at the pretty stars. Watch a few 'NOVA' episodes'.

University Level College: Learn Kepler's law and calculate the orbits of various planets. Learn Newtonian physics and calculate various things. Exams were almost all math.

HUGE difference.

But, if you didn't know what the CC taught you, then you CERTAINLY would not know what to do once you got the university level exam. It did exactly what it was supposed to do...prepare you. Oh, and let me know the next time you make a single dollar for knowing Newtonian physics, outside of a classroom.

I manage a team of PhD's that do quite nicely salary-wise, so I'm getting a kick out of this reply. Although they are chemists, not physicists.

IXI Jim IXI: When they reach that first question, "How old is the universe?", that probably weeds out a few right there.

I lol'd

Damnhippyfreak: Wow. It's great to see so many people with positive experiences and comments about CCs. Um. There's absolutely nothing for me to biatch about. Hm.

Damn underachiever.

fenianfark: U of Phoenix is a joke. Anyone that is hiring will not so much as look at a U of Phoenix graduate. Try getting an engineering degree there and then telling other engineers that you are also an engineer. You will be laughed at.

I agree with a lot of your post, but that school scams the poor and ignorant into taking out student loans for worthless degrees.


I agree, teachers get paid more when they get their masters and doctorates, so they flock to Phoenix U. like moths to a light.

I took every class I could at CC, saved thousands of dollars. They all transfered to the University that is on my resume.

Plus there were alot of girls there with self esteem issues.

Damnhippyfreak: Wow. It's great to see so many people with positive experiences and comments about CCs. Um. There's absolutely nothing for me to biatch about. Hm.

/twiddles thumbs

let me get you started: if it weren't for the damn lazy hippies that go to CCs, they probably wouldn't have such a stigma attached to them in the first place.

I won't knock Community colleges - i got a couple of credits in on the cheap that transferred to A&M for my main degree... it was easy, effective, and one of the only reasons i graduated on time.

That being said -- if you want to increase the quality of education and students coming out of any higher education... start toughening up middle and high schools.

No more of this "we will let you slide" crap

Whatever your view are on CC, I have to say that putting a higher priority on building the educational foundation of this nation and strengthening the skilled workforce is a good thing. Kudos.

At the CC that i go to, it is hit or miss. Sometimes the classes are amazing and I get so much out of them that I can't wait for the next class. And then other classes make me grind my teeth at the absolute absurdity. Yeah I'm looking at you 60 something year old grandmother type who teaches Computer Programming I.

CC is great for someone like me who was pushed into the military after high school.

\Northern San Diego County

atlanta_ufo: fenianfark: U of Phoenix is a joke. Anyone that is hiring will not so much as look at a U of Phoenix graduate. Try getting an engineering degree there and then telling other engineers that you are also an engineer. You will be laughed at.

I agree with a lot of your post, but that school scams the poor and ignorant into taking out student loans for worthless degrees.


I agree, teachers get paid more when they get their masters and doctorates, so they flock to Phoenix U. like moths to a light.

Agreed. It is a way to get a "degree" with little to no work. There are sites dedicated to exposing them for what they are.

Wulfman
for an education you coulda got for $1.50 in late charges at the public library.


If you steal a line from a movie make it one thats old enough to be obscure.

Most of the people who bash community colleges got shiatty degrees from shiatty state schools. This helps to pump their ego by having someone to put down.

And I fully recognize those of us with good degrees who went to good schools shiat on those of you with shiatty degrees from shiatty state schools.

Hey it's the circle of life.

dogfood: I took every class I could at CC, saved thousands of dollars. They all transfered to the University that is on my resume.

Plus there were alot of girls there with self esteem issues.

The only problem is that most of them lived with their parents.

Show me the funding of community colleges in the constitution!

/Another abuse by runaway government

Dangl1ng: Yeah I'm looking at you 60 something year old grandmother type who teaches Computer Programming I.

LOL! At least these days, you can easily network with former (or current) students and ask about particular professors.

tweekster: The only problem is that most of them lived with their parents.

So what? If you even have a shiatty one room apartment, that'd make you king of all you survey.

I was just checking to see if this is where a bunch of kids who partied at the university on daddy's dime denigrate those people who worked while attending a community college so they could better themselves. I see that it is. Carry on

IXI Jim IXI: Like how an educated workforce will pay more in taxes?

And also pay for us old people...right Jim!

HenryFnord: Can we call them what they are - vocational schools?

THIS. There's a sad disconnect between what CC's really teach and what the name implies. For the longest time, most full-time 4 year colleges and univeristies tried like hell not to accept all sorts of credits from CC's. I had the rather curious experience of getting a CC to accept my 4-year college credits (not like I wanted to take English 101 again).

Can you get an undertaker's certificate from Harvard?

Blowmonkey: The_Sponge: - Chris Rock

A real beacon of intellectual thought that one.


It's still funny.

My $0.02:

Community college is what you make it. I've met plenty of people like my SO who started at a community college, then transferred over to a 4 year school. (She graduated from UW.)

But I've also met the lazy airheads who take a few classes at the CC, then drop out.

letdown102: Completely agree with the President on this one. Community colleges are perhaps the most cost-effective ways to get higher education. The credits transfer to most 4 year schools, and even many graduate schools recommend community colleges to incoming students who need to make up some undergraduate prerequisites.

Any school that DOESN'T accept the credits from a CC that is accredited by the same organization should have its accredidation revoked.

The two years spent in CC and getting an Associates Degree is the same as spending 2 years at a 4 year school and getting an Associates Degree. English 101 is English 101 no matter where you get it if they follow the standard course curriculum. If they don't then they can't call it English 101. (or whatever course)

agoodbook: If you steal a line from a movie make it one thats old enough to be obscure.


Bah, I could only be accused of stealing it if I had some expectation that people wouldn't recognize it.

AlwaysRightBoy: And also pay for us old people...right Jim!

Hey...when you plan on living forever, this become a very important concern...

Arnold T Pants: Yea, keep on spending. It's not like this country is running the largest deficit in the history of the world. I think Obama needs to go to one of these colleges. It probably wouldn't hurt if freshened up on basic economics first. You know, the basics you learn in middle school.

I don't know where you went to middle school, but at my business school at my right-leaning private university, they were still pushing the Reagan-approved, Chicago School idea that deficits don't matter.

liverleef: I was just checking to see if this is where a bunch of kids who partied at the university on daddy's dime denigrate those people who worked while attending a community college so they could better themselves. I see that it is. Carry on

you sound poor

Benjimin_Dover: The two years spent in CC and getting an Associates Degree is the same as spending 2 years at a 4 year school and getting an Associates Degree. English 101 is English 101 no matter where you get it if they follow the standard course curriculum. If they don't then they can't call it English 101. (or whatever course)

It depends on the course. For instance, they claimed that my history class was "too specialized"...and then offered me Asian History for my History credit.

BTW, not only are there a lot of girls with self-esteem issues, there's usually a decent amount of turnover, so there's always a fresh face.

Ludendorff's Ghost: THIS. There's a sad disconnect between what CC's really teach and what the name implies. For the longest time, most full-time 4 year colleges and univeristies tried like hell not to accept all sorts of credits from CC's. I had the rather curious experience of getting a CC to accept my 4-year college credits (not like I wanted to take English 101 again).

At least in WA state, if you have Associates from Community College, all in-state public universities have to accept that as their 2 year pre-req's for degree programs. It makes things simple.

As someone going to a CC I have to say they are pretty hit or miss. I went on the advice that a lot of you are repeating here. However, I'm currently taking classes that are about HS level, most of the people are barely literate, and my professors range from barely competent to annoying liberal douchebags who think the classroom is a soap box (yeah, I know a 4 year has those too but they just feel so much less appropriate at a 2 year). I'm sure there are good ones but I'm not at one.

/Not sure if I can finish without kicking one of the unwed mothers in the stomach.

Benjimin_Dover: letdown102: Completely agree with the President on this one. Community colleges are perhaps the most cost-effective ways to get higher education. The credits transfer to most 4 year schools, and even many graduate schools recommend community colleges to incoming students who need to make up some undergraduate prerequisites.

Any school that DOESN'T accept the credits from a CC that is accredited by the same organization should have its accredidation revoked.

The two years spent in CC and getting an Associates Degree is the same as spending 2 years at a 4 year school and getting an Associates Degree. English 101 is English 101 no matter where you get it if they follow the standard course curriculum. If they don't then they can't call it English 101. (or whatever course)


Courses like Principles of Mathematics usually have no equivalent at a 4-year, so you have to ensure the courses you take at CC transfer.

HenryFnord: Can we call them what they are - vocational schools?

That depends on the curriculum.

While some complete a two-year AA or AS "work-force" degree, others use CC's as a low cost alternative to the fist two years of a BS or BA degree.

...and, in the future...

...try not to sound like such an elitist douche-nozzle.

Howie Spankowitz: brigid_fitch: Howie Spankowitz: HenryFnord: Can we call them what they are - vocational schools?

Well, since that's not what they are, I would advise against it. I think community college captures the gist.

True--community colleges are like grades 13 & 14. For when you can't get into a real college.

/Went to community college for 1 year because, although I got accepted into the university I wanted, I couldn't get housing that year.
//Besides, since my father was a head of security @ the CC, tuition was free.
///Classes were a joke. Got a 4.0 and never bought a book.

Yeah...you went to a shiatty community college. They do exist. You chose a bad one. I have had involvement with CC's as a student, staff person, consultant and United Way exec and have seen first hand the positive impact they have had.

Agreed. It is your fault for not doing the proper research and finding a decent community college, and it is unfair and not at all correct to lump all CC's into a learn-nothing trash heap. I can say with a good deal of confidence that I learned more valuable skills and overall, just learned more at my community college than I did at the four-year university that followed.

Also, I dropped out of high school and earned my GED at 22, and I would never had the opportunity to attend a university, or even to give college a try if it weren't for California community colleges. Oh, and you feel the need to deride community colleges and choose to underestimate its utility, you are a snotty a-hole.

/De Anza College rocks
//SFSU was OK

IXI Jim IXI: Benjimin_Dover: The two years spent in CC and getting an Associates Degree is the same as spending 2 years at a 4 year school and getting an Associates Degree. English 101 is English 101 no matter where you get it if they follow the standard course curriculum. If they don't then they can't call it English 101. (or whatever course)

It depends on the course. For instance, they claimed that my history class was "too specialized"...and then offered me Asian History for my History credit.

In my case they bent over backwards with course transfers and calling it an equivalent. Some weren't even in the same department but they asked me what we covered and they would say "close enough". But then again a lot of classes were specialized and would change in 4 years anyways. A class might fill a requirement that will only be offered for one semester.

dlime16:

/Not sure if I can finish without kicking one of the unwed mothers in the stomach.

Well, kick one of the unwed mothers-to-be in the stomach...at least then you're getting something done.

Okay, I think it's time to shift gears a bit and call out Subby on the headline. Where are students getting more indoctrination to Marxist philosophy... the Community Colleges, or the State Universities? Or the "private" Ivy League schools? Which schools are more filled with left wing student organizations?

Who are the real communisty colleges, Subby?

fenianfark:
U of Phoenix is a joke. Anyone that is hiring will not so much as look at a U of Phoenix graduate. Try getting an engineering degree there and then telling other engineers that you are also an engineer. You will be laughed at.

I agree with a lot of your post, but that school scams the poor and ignorant into taking out student loans for worthless degrees.

I don't think U of P ever expected to compete with a traditional college in terms of "prestige." Overall, I was just trying to convey my belief that CC and for-profits perform a necessary function in training a certain segment of the population in a cost-effective manner. I don't think they will ever compete with traditional 4-year degrees, and anyone that expects them too could be expecting too much.

tweekster: In my case they bent over backwards with course transfers and calling it an equivalent. Some weren't even in the same department but they asked me what we covered and they would say "close enough". But then again a lot of classes were specialized and would change in 4 years anyways. A class might fill a requirement that will only be offered for one semester.

Dammit! If it went that way with mine, I'd have a Psych degree by now.

...and probably be a seething cauldron of self-hate. Ah well

Arnold T Pants: Yea, keep on spending. It's not like this country is running the largest deficit in the history of the world. I think Obama needs to go to one of these colleges. It probably wouldn't hurt if freshened up on basic economics first. You know, the basics you learn in middle school.

How do you people type this without a ":;" after Bush's unprecedented spending and corporate bailouts?

Blowmonkey: Most of the people who bash community colleges got shiatty degrees from shiatty state schools. This helps to pump their ego by having someone to put down.

And I fully recognize those of us with good degrees who went to good schools shiat on those of you with shiatty degrees from shiatty state schools.

Hey it's the circle of life.

My parents were too poor to pay for a 4-year university when I was 18, so I did 2 years at a CC (Southwestern, in Chula Vista). I much later transferred to San Diego State University, which turned out to be an amazing experience. I highly recommend SDSU. I learned a great deal there, and the professors were fantastic.

That was a longwinded way to say that I think Obama made a good decision here.

atlanta_ufo: Courses like Principles of Mathematics usually have no equivalent at a 4-year, so you have to ensure the courses you take at CC transfer.

The other factor I have found is that age matters when it comes to transfer credits. They will work with a person coming in as a junior and calling it an equivalent course. A freshman that took one semester at a CC will get less consideration.

I meant " ;) ". I knew that didn't look right.

dlime16: I'm sure there are good ones but I'm not at one.

Do I have to tell you step 2?

dlime16: annoying liberal douchebags who think the classroom is a soap box

This is why I like engineering. It is hard to convey a liberal or conservative bias when teaching thermodynamics or finite element analysis.

IXI Jim IXI: Benjimin_Dover: The two years spent in CC and getting an Associates Degree is the same as spending 2 years at a 4 year school and getting an Associates Degree. English 101 is English 101 no matter where you get it if they follow the standard course curriculum. If they don't then they can't call it English 101. (or whatever course)

It depends on the course. For instance, they claimed that my history class was "too specialized"...and then offered me Asian History for my History credit.

It wasn't too specialized, it was too white. Diversity is all the rage nowadays.

Community Colleges are good for one thing: shafting the system back by not paying your own university for those bullshiat core classes. Almost everyone I know that went to community college went there because they couldn't hack it in a four-year school. The remaining few realized that credit hours were accepted by our university but cost half as much and were at least twice as easy.

Community Colleges are a festering boil on the higher education system. It's why I had to get a Masters to make sure I don't get some shiat job right out of school. It's why I have to get my Ph.D to keep competitive. Undergraduates are a dime-a-dozen and just as inept with a degree as they were stumbling out of high school. CC's cheapen the whole system. What's going to happen when we've all got at least one Ph.D in some menial task? Something's gotta break.

\Made the mistake of actually taking all my courses at my university
\\Paid out of state tuition -- assholes
\\\Engineer laughing at all these Philosophy and Business majors serving me lunch today. College is for higher education, not fark around 'till I find something I want to do. That's called high school.

(Cue the 'but I was the first to graduate in my family thanks to CC' whiners. Yeah? So was I. And you assholes are making me get a Ph.D sooner or later.)

I remember when Bush said during the debates with Kerry that people who lose their jobs due to outsourcing should go back and get some education.

Here you go...

Also, to the people that go on and on about ditch diggers: Yeah, my Dad is Cemeterian. He has been in the business for +30 years. He had to earn a degree at some point in what I don't know (a combination of business administration and horticulture, maybe.) But we have talked on the subject often and he had to get the degree to get earn more, to run the crematorium, and to run the cemetery.

/Working class roots, yo.
//I know it was a line from a movie, but it's wrong

I'm not sure we should be dumping billions of taxpayer dollars into them but why would anyone take such a dim view of community colleges/vocational schools?
CC's are a necessary part of the American education equation because our high schools suck so bad these days. Not to mention the continuing education programs many of them offer.

FTFA - President Barack Obama will unveil a $12 billion initiative on Tuesday to boost community colleges and propel the United States toward his goal of having the highest proportion of college graduates in the world by 2020, administration officials said.

Speaking as someone who went to an affordable community college for two years before transferring to AND graduating from a far more expensive private college, I'm all for this idea.

/Started out at "Tri-C" west, ended up at Baldwin-Wallace College.
//Think $30ish per credit hour versus $120ish (this was YEARS ago).
///FARK yeah, it's the way to go.

Howie Spankowitz: I have long believed community colleges to be one of the most underrated economic engines in the country. It's also one of our most democratic institutions. I wouldn't have been the first member of my entire family to graduate from college if it weren't for CC.

CC's are government services at their most cost-effective and best.

THIS I didn't go to one but recognize their value. Getting prerequisite cousres out of the way for a much lower cost is one. Why pay top dollar for Eng 101 or Art 101 when you can get comparable for far less cost then at a two year school. Especially true if you aren't an English major or art student.

Retraining workers for new jobs is another.

From a parental POV you can see if little Johny is applying himself before spending the big bucks.

Christ on Crutch the value of a good CC is almost endless. They are the military calls a force multiplier.

Looking at my MFA/IA I realize that I've been able to parley my CC education to great effect.
So yeah, Community College is worth it.
I have a heartwarming tale of failure and redemption to go along with my degrees but I'll spare everyone the details and leave it at " I might not have made it without Community Colleges". You haters just didn't want to get out of bed or leave the party so put a sock in it.

BlorfMaster: Rockdrummer: I teach a community college class. My first peer review said "Ease up on the requirements, after all this is a community college, not a university." Is it the mindset that community college is a dumbed down college education? Things like my experience don't help the reputation.

I took astronomy as a science requirement in both a community college and a major university.

Community college: learn the name of the planets, go to the planetarium and look at the pretty stars. Watch a few 'NOVA' episodes'.

University Level College: Learn Kepler's law and calculate the orbits of various planets. Learn Newtonian physics and calculate various things. Exams were almost all math.

HUGE difference.

If you took the exact same class twice, you're an idiot. If you neglected to point out they were different classes on the same subject, you're a dumbass. You pick.

Blowmonkey: dlime16: I'm sure there are good ones but I'm not at one.

Do I have to tell you step 2?

???

spcefrk: Community Colleges are good for one thing: shafting the system back by not paying your own university for those bullshiat core classes. Almost everyone I know that went to community college went there because they couldn't hack it in a four-year school. The remaining few realized that credit hours were accepted by our university but cost half as much and were at least twice as easy.

Community Colleges are a festering boil on the higher education system. It's why I had to get a Masters to make sure I don't get some shiat job right out of school. It's why I have to get my Ph.D to keep competitive. Undergraduates are a dime-a-dozen and just as inept with a degree as they were stumbling out of high school. CC's cheapen the whole system. What's going to happen when we've all got at least one Ph.D in some menial task? Something's gotta break.

\Made the mistake of actually taking all my courses at my university
\\Paid out of state tuition -- assholes
\\\Engineer laughing at all these Philosophy and Business majors serving me lunch today. College is for higher education, not fark around 'till I find something I want to do. That's called high school.

(Cue the 'but I was the first to graduate in my family thanks to CC' whiners. Yeah? So was I. And you assholes are making me get a Ph.D sooner or later.)


You are probably just trolling but I will disagree with you.

Even if a college degree doesn't lead you to the career you thought it would. You can learn alot about cultural diversity, opposing views, differant points of referance.

These are all things that may not come from a book but will serve you later in life.

When I first read "Obama pumps billions" I was just like "oh, shiat, this is bill clinton all over again"

rastjr: These are all things that may not come from a book but will serve you later in life.

Like, in his case, "moving out of Kansas"

dlime16: As someone going to a CC I have to say they are pretty hit or miss. I went on the advice that a lot of you are repeating here. However, I'm currently taking classes that are about HS level, most of the people are barely literate, and my professors range from barely competent to annoying liberal douchebags who think the classroom is a soap box (yeah, I know a 4 year has those too but they just feel so much less appropriate at a 2 year). I'm sure there are good ones but I'm not at one.

/Not sure if I can finish without kicking one of the unwed mothers in the stomach.

Remind them politely they are contracted to teach and you are a paying customer. Most CC teachers don not have tenure.

dlime16: Blowmonkey: dlime16: I'm sure there are good ones but I'm not at one.

Do I have to tell you step 2?

???

Go to a good one.

/maybe you should stay there actually.

MrSteve007:
By the time I left CC, I had an associates degree, pre-professional in radio broadcasting, certified MIG, TIG and Oxy Welder, and an ASE certified auto electrician.

I found that the quality of instruction was much higher in community college, since the class sizes were smaller, and most of the instructors are working professionals in their industry, vs. University professors who have been in purely academia for 15-20 years.

To be fair, the things you were trained in don't actually get any training at the university level, as you're expected to pick them up in about half an hour by reading the six-page manual and maybe some online supplementals. Except for pre-professional radio broadcasting, which doesn't even require that.

It seems kind of unfair to judge real college negatively on the grounds that they teach things you have to have some minimal intelligence to absorb. The entire world cannot be geared toward the dumbest individual possible, we'd get nowhere.

//Admittedly I do have a lot more welding knowledge than can be absorbed in 30 minutes, but somehow I'm doubting that your MIG/TIG class covered quantitative effects stemming from molecular adhesion and variable corrosion and expansion coefficients in welded zones.

//Also welding properly does takes some practice. Not training... just practice.

The CC down the road from me is graduated a record sized class this year. Still no businesses or industries to hire them and there hasn't been for over a decade. And because any industry created in America gets exported overseas in about 2-4 years, there's still no hope for any kind future except burger flipper and cashier at wal-mart

America, it really sucks

Going to a community college was one of the best decisions I have ever made in my young life! I saved thousands of dollars in loans and rent by living with a friend and getting an associates degree. I always encourage everyone I know who is graduating high school to think about it! It's the exact same education as you would get your first two years as it is, just a lot cheaper! I love community college!

Blowmonkey: dlime16: Blowmonkey: dlime16: I'm sure there are good ones but I'm not at one.

Do I have to tell you step 2?

???

Go to a good one.

/maybe you should stay there actually.

Is he perhaps part of why that CC isn't very good? He couldn't figure out step 2 (but step 3 is always PROFIT), after all.

Blowmonkey: dlime16: Blowmonkey: dlime16: I'm sure there are good ones but I'm not at one.

Do I have to tell you step 2?

???

Go to a good one.

/maybe you should stay there actually.

I think you missed the joke. That is my plan, I just have no need to blab about my life plans on fark.

IXI Jim IXI: BTW, not only are there a lot of girls with self-esteem issues, there's usually a decent amount of turnover, so there's always a fresh face.

You ain't lyin'! Twenty years ago I went through the Hotel and Restaurant Management Dept. at Gwinnett Tech like Sherman went through Georgia.

/them was the days

When I graduated HS I could of gone to the local CC for free or the local University for free, all at the expense of the State. I choose the University.

It is nice seeing so many people going onto higher education, but a BA is becoming worthless. Nice to know that my (future) degree in Psychology, which would of allowed for more opportunities 50 years ago, is now seen today as a bullshiat degree today. I can only assume it is the same for other majors (history, polysci, communication).

Oh well. I'm thinking about becoming a double major in Physics. Right now I'm taking the Calculus classes and have been getting A's in them so far. Start the actual Physics class this fall. I still got two years to figure this out.

Went to a 4-year school, 3 years of it were out of state.

The lessons i learned being 1,000 miles from home and doing things on my own far outweigh the few grand I could have saved by living at home for 2 years and transferring. The life/business skills that I picked up from being anonomyous at a 4-year school are worth far more, IMO.

IXI Jim IXI: rastjr: These are all things that may not come from a book but will serve you later in life.

Like, in his case, "moving out of Kansas"


Yeah, that would be a start.

Putting degrees in gumball machines across the country would be cheaper.

GAT_00: Could you dump that into the real colleges first Obama? Thanks. Two straight years of 20% increases as I finish up isn't nice.

Well, you see, the difference is this...

"Real" colleges, as you so eloquently put it, have sports teams, alumni, and legacies, so chances are pretty good that the money is getting pooled (or pulled?) from SOMEWHERE, be it from sporting event ticket sales, alumni boards, who are no more than VERY rich people with VERY deep pockets and don't know how to distribute the money, and usually give most of it to the President of the University, who basically does nothing more than sits on his ass and twiddles his thumbs.

/I might've pulled that out of MY ass, but I still think it's true.
//Aren't run-in sentences GREAT!?

Marcintosh: Looking at my MFA/IA I realize that I've been able to parley my CC education to great effect.
So yeah, Community College is worth it.
I have a heartwarming tale of failure and redemption to go along with my degrees but I'll spare everyone the details and leave it at " I might not have made it without Community Colleges". You haters just didn't want to get out of bed or leave the party so put a sock in it.

They don't like the competition from smart farm kids, smart poor working class with fire in their bellies and smart former grunts.

Former grunt ;o) Went to college after I got my degree, have yet to regret that decision. Best kind of worker: smart farm kids hands down. Motivated, hardworking, boat loads of common sense.

BlorfMaster: If your college education was not expensive, then it is worthless.

"Yes, I received my degree in GhettoCity Community College"

"Thank you for coming, NEXT"

The only thing worse than shelling out cash for a degree is shelling out even more for a pedigree.

If a potential employer is not interested in what you know and what you can accomplish with that knowledge, then they don't know what they want or need. If they start hiring employees, then, based on their opinion of what school they have been to, they are bound to find themselves surrounded by those who probably have never had to apply the concepts of scarcity, opportunity cost, or efficiency to their lives.

I have a B.S. from a public school that is very well thought of in the industry the degree applies to. It is the biggest waste of time and money I have ever pursued.

Major Universities are quickly becoming, if not already, outside of the average Americans ability to go to them.

I was almost exactly the midpoint of my high school class's standings. My high school GPA was about a 2.4. To say that I was not going to receive enough scholarship to attend College was an understatement.

We need good community colleges in place for those that wish to better themselves. As Americans I believe we all have a healthy respect for people's potential, and don't want anyone to lose that potential.

/Story ends well for me at least. I worked a couple jobs during school and put myself through community college with a 3.9 GPA.

o5iiawah: The lessons i learned being 1,000 miles from home and doing things on my own far outweigh the few grand I could have saved by living at home for 2 years and transferring. The life/business skills that I picked up from being anonomyous at a 4-year school are worth far more, IMO.

In other words, the drinking.

Obama just wants to brainwash the youth in leftist propaganda.

Major Universities are quickly becoming, if not already, outside of the average Americans ability to go to them.



You hit the nail on the head - average isn't their ideal candidate.

IXI Jim IXI: o5iiawah: The lessons i learned being 1,000 miles from home and doing things on my own far outweigh the few grand I could have saved by living at home for 2 years and transferring. The life/business skills that I picked up from being anonomyous at a 4-year school are worth far more, IMO.

In other words, the drinking.

Budgeting, responsibility, networking, ethic.

Yes, drinking too

I knew too many snowflakes, unwed mothers, or kids with helicopter parents who are 25 and dont act a day over 17 because they went to CC or a school a stones' throw from where they live.

AR55: When I graduated HS I could of HAVE gone to the local CC for free or the local University for free, all at the expense of the State. I choose the University.

It is nice seeing so many people going onto higher education, but a BA is becoming worthless. It's nNice to know that my (future) degree in Psychology, which would of HAVE allowed for more opportunities 50 years ago, is now seen today as a bullshiat degree today. I can only assume it is the same for other majors (history, polysci, communication).

Oh, well. I'm thinking about becoming a double major in Physics. Right now I'm taking the Calculus classes and have been getting A's in them so far. Start the actual Physics class this fall. I still gotHAVE two years to figure this out.

FTFY.

You probably should HAVE used your college education to further your grammar skills.

/What? I'm just saying!
//I only had ONE year of college...and that's just because the college kept having technical "problems" getting my high school transcripts through...yeah, right.
///If it makes you feel any better, I've long forgotten how to use punctuation! :D

o5iiawah: I knew too many snowflakes, unwed mothers, or kids with helicopter parents who are 25 and dont act a day over 17 because they went to CC or a school a stones' throw from where they live.

Some people have to be forced to grow up.

Not me, though. I'm a Toys R Us kid. :D

Howie Spankowitz:
All of you denigrating CC's as "degree mills" or somehow not being "real" college are beyond ignorant. Look at the transfer stats to four year colleges from CC's in California. Most of these students might not have had an opportunity to go to college if not for CC's.

THIS

I suppose it depends on the community college, though.

I'll point out, though, that I probably count as one of those people who wouldn't have made the cut if I'd gone straight to uni, though...'twas a big help.

Some days I wish I'd just said "screw it" and went the vocational route, though. The guys who went for heating/AC are doing a lot better than I am.

fenianfark: U of Phoenix is a joke. Anyone that is hiring will not so much as look at a U of Phoenix graduate. Try getting an engineering degree there and then telling other engineers that you are also an engineer. You will be laughed at.

That's funny. I was talking with a friend about this the other day. Can you give an example what engineering degree that would be?

autopsybeverage: BlorfMaster: If your college education was not expensive, then it is worthless.

"Yes, I received my degree in GhettoCity Community College"

"Thank you for coming, NEXT"

The only thing worse than shelling out cash for a degree is shelling out even more for a pedigree.

If a potential employer is not interested in what you know and what you can accomplish with that knowledge, then they don't know what they want or need. If they start hiring employees, then, based on their opinion of what school they have been to, they are bound to find themselves surrounded by those who probably have never had to apply the concepts of scarcity, opportunity cost, or efficiency to their lives.

I have a B.S. from a public school that is very well thought of in the industry the degree applies to. It is the biggest waste of time and money I have ever pursued.

THIS

Many companies/government agencies hire skill sets and ability to fit into their organizational culture. School pedigree was more important about 25 years ago, to day not so much.

Even searches done on monster are done through key word searches based on what they are hiring for. They only do that if the unadvertised job market is exhausted first or they are required to by law.

I don't get the hate for CC's.

I currently attend one. In fact, tonight I have an interview for the RN program there.

I attended a private college back in 97-99 and I hated it. I love it at the CC I go to now. The teachers there actually work during the day in the field they teach, and come teach class at night. You get small classes and lots of one on one time. Free tutors too, if needed.

Aside from the great education I am getting, this school has an 95% post grad work placement rate as well. The nearest U is 3.5 hours away. Going there isn't an option to those of us with families and jobs.

When I do graduate, I have no doubt I will be just as qualified as someone who went to a university.

I got my associate's degree RN from a community college that cost me about $900 total per semester and started making good money straight out of college, so I'm getting a kick out of this thread.

o5iiawah: IXI Jim IXI: o5iiawah: The lessons i learned being 1,000 miles from home and doing things on my own far outweigh the few grand I could have saved by living at home for 2 years and transferring. The life/business skills that I picked up from being anonomyous at a 4-year school are worth far more, IMO.

In other words, the drinking.

Budgeting, responsibility, networking, ethic.

Yes, drinking too

I knew too many snowflakes, unwed mothers, or kids with helicopter parents who are 25 and dont act a day over 17 because they went to CC or a school a stones' throw from where they live.

Right, it's the community college's fault, not the douche parents' or the douche kid's.

/Might I suggest an English Grammar class next semester? Or heck, summer school?
//I really don't think unwed mothers don't act a day over 17. And if they are at your college, you should applaud them and kiss their feet because they are working hard to improve their lives.

I think the biggest problem with my generation's education is that so many people get a degree from wherever and then continue living in their parent's house. I am not talking about people who do it for 6 months to a year I am talking about people who are 28-29. Move out.

I thought we have enough college grads now,that don't know their dumpster from a hole in the ground,leeching off the working man.

Of course the longer able bodies are loitering around in the halls of academia,the better our unemployment numbers look.

Another welfare program for the privatized "education"racket,producing barely functional illiterates at outrageous taxpayer expense.

theMightyRegeya: Some days I wish I'd just said "screw it" and went the vocational route, though. The guys who went for heating/AC are doing a lot better than I am.

I've been toying with going back, but right now have no idea what I'd go for. Nursing pulls in decent money, but I'd probably end up on the news.

Maybe I'll just become a blogger.

Jim_Callahan: To be fair, the things you were trained in don't actually get any training at the university level, as you're expected to pick them up in about half an hour by reading the six-page manual and maybe some online supplementals. Except for pre-professional radio broadcasting, which doesn't even require that.

It seems kind of unfair to judge real college negatively on the grounds that they teach things you have to have some minimal intelligence to absorb. The entire world cannot be geared toward the dumbest individual possible, we'd get nowhere.

//Admittedly I do have a lot more welding knowledge than can be absorbed in 30 minutes, but somehow I'm doubting that your MIG/TIG class covered quantitative effects stemming from molecular adhesion and variable corrosion and expansion coefficients in welded zones.

//Also welding properly does takes some practice. Not training... just practice.

You'd be surprised . . . the full welding course of study is a two year Applied Science degree - Many Boeing welders are sent to that program. And a large number of commercial underwater welders start from the Northwest first start at that CC.

Degree overview (new window, pdf)

Program Overview (new window)

It's not a intellectually taxing program, but it's also not a 30 minute read either.

theMightyRegeya: I'll point out, though, that I probably count as one of those people who wouldn't have made the cut if I'd gone straight to uni, though...'twas a big help.

The salutatorian at my high school partied out of Stanford his first semester. I bumped into him at the local CC second semester, and he was really embarrassed to caught at the loser school that took him in even though he was an idiot and blew his chance at a real education. Lulz

IXI Jim IXI: o5iiawah: The lessons i learned being 1,000 miles from home and doing things on my own far outweigh the few grand I could have saved by living at home for 2 years and transferring. The life/business skills that I picked up from being anonomyous at a 4-year school are worth far more, IMO.

In other words, the drinking.

I have to agree with o5iiawah. I learned more by going to a 4 year out of state school than my 124 credits show.

Also, there are more hot girls and the parties are better.

tacks: Major Universities are quickly becoming, if not already, outside of the average Americans ability to go to them.



You hit the nail on the head - average isn't their ideal candidate.

So you're saying that if a kid's parents are not in the upper income brackets they are not qualified to go to a four-year university?

andrewskdr: IXI Jim IXI: o5iiawah: The lessons i learned being 1,000 miles from home and doing things on my own far outweigh the few grand I could have saved by living at home for 2 years and transferring. The life/business skills that I picked up from being anonomyous at a 4-year school are worth far more, IMO.

In other words, the drinking.

I have to agree with o5iiawah. I learned more by going to a 4 year out of state school than my 124 credits show.

Also, there are more hot girls and the parties are better.

You probably could have learned that shiat in 2 years instead of 4 and saved yourself several thousands of dollars.

WaltzingMathilda: Death to New Rome: I'm having my doubts about the credibility of Major Universities(Non hard science majors of course) but these local community colleges and degree mills? Come on, I would rather have the billions spent on some kind of free T.V. stations that show educational programming or something. This is just feeding the already outrageous education racket here. This government truly is a one trick pony. Bad form Obama BAD FORM!

so if you're having your doubts about majors, and consider locals bad too ... then where do you feel you get a good education? small private schools that are about 2,000 enrollment and cost 45k a year?

please, subsidizing education is the first thing we need to do to get our country competitive globally again. and some of the best institutions in america are public, major universities.

sure, thousands of idiots slog their way through with a C average and party the whole time, but it's not like they find jobs easily. blame a subsection of america for their behavior, not universities. we need to be more pro-education in our mindsets.

No, I think he's saying that everyone should major in engineering and science, because that's all we need in society.

Fun fact -- the University of Iowa used to get about 50% of its funding from the state. Now it gets about 9%. Universities are running on a shoestring because we don't believe in education anymore. This news about Community Colleges is nothing but a good thing -- maybe the same thing will happen on the university level.

Jim_Callahan: To be fair, the things you were trained in don't actually get any training at the university level, as you're expected to pick them up in about half an hour by reading the six-page manual and maybe some online supplementals. Except for pre-professional radio broadcasting, which doesn't even require that.

Ahem (new window, pdf)

Versus 4 year University broadcasting program . . . Link (new window)

The Madd Man: Our local CC is so bad we call it Montgomery Kollege. Maybe it's different other places.

Gaaaaaaaaaaah not MCJC!

/ Graduated from RMHS in '90
// Did a semester @ MCJC before hopping a Greyhound to FLA

blindpreacher: That's funny. I was talking with a friend about this the other day. Can you give an example what engineering degree that would be?


Software engineering? That's the only one I see on their website. So I guess fenianfark is right, you would be laughed at by engineers.

Gamer Grrrl: andrewskdr: IXI Jim IXI: o5iiawah: The lessons i learned being 1,000 miles from home and doing things on my own far outweigh the few grand I could have saved by living at home for 2 years and transferring. The life/business skills that I picked up from being anonomyous at a 4-year school are worth far more, IMO.

In other words, the drinking.

I have to agree with o5iiawah. I learned more by going to a 4 year out of state school than my 124 credits show.

Also, there are more hot girls and the parties are better.

You probably could have learned that shiat in 2 years instead of 4 and saved yourself several thousands of dollars.

And you can also see the world by looking at pictures on the internet! That can also save you many thousands of dollars, as well as time. But sometimes getting the experience is money well spent.

Pxtl: Depends what you go to college for. CCs have their own moronic useless disciplines on par with the Liberal Arts degrees of university, but with none of the prestige.

On the other hand, a diploma and apprenticeship in plumbing or a similar trade will net you a good job in the real world.

About the Liberal Arts degrees: This. I mean, who wants to spend many thousands of dollars to get a BA in...French Literature and Philosophy? I mean, I cannot imagine a more useless degree than one in reading and thinking.

That being said, I'm a little biased because I'm working on an AAS (Electronic Engineering Technician program) in a community college, and I love it there. I don't pay a dime thanks to Pell Grants, and my instructor is an experienced technician who has been teaching for about... 30 years, I think. More money for CC's could be a very very good thing. Our lab is filled with primarily 10 year old test equipment which is essentially all donated from Fluke (though I've heard that some Universities don't do much better.)

So, you CC-haters, get down from your ivory tower, any education is better than no education, and community colleges seem to be more concentrated on making people intelligent and employable, rather than just the former.

Wulfman: blindpreacher: That's funny. I was talking with a friend about this the other day. Can you give an example what engineering degree that would be?


Software engineering? That's the only one I see on their website. So I guess fenianfark is right, you would be laughed at by engineers.

I always thought engineers laughed at 'software engineers' because the later made more money for less rigorous course work.

WCHeadhunter: tacks: Major Universities are quickly becoming, if not already, outside of the average Americans ability to go to them.

You hit the nail on the head - average isn't their ideal candidate.

So you're saying that if a kid's parents are not in the upper income brackets they are not qualified to go to a four-year university?

I'm not saying they're unqualified I'm just saying they would prefer to have candidates coming from a higher net worth family - in theory they can consume more college services and have the ability to contribute more.

Most of the people who rag on CC are just pissed because they wasted tons of money on the same thing from a University. Nearly every class I've taken from CC has been great. Smaller classes, with teachers who actually take the time to help you learn what you need. I completed A&P 231-234 with with a class of about 15 people. My teacher was reputably the hardest tester on campus, but she took more time than any other teacher I've had to answer your questions and pound the science into your head to make sure you connect the dots.

Best part? I've got 2 years and about 50 credits that count the same at nearly every oregon university and I worked part time during school. I don't owe a penny.

My friends are still changing majors three years in, and they've racked up debt at least into the 50k range.

dlime16: As someone going to a CC I have to say they are pretty hit or miss. I went on the advice that a lot of you are repeating here. However, I'm currently taking classes that are about HS level, most of the people are barely literate, and my professors range from barely competent to annoying liberal douchebags who think the classroom is a soap box (yeah, I know a 4 year has those too but they just feel so much less appropriate at a 2 year). I'm sure there are good ones but I'm not at one.

/Not sure if I can finish without kicking one of the unwed mothers in the stomach.


Let me guess something here. When you write a paper that goes against those 'liberal' values and you get a poor grade it's because they're 'liberal douchebags", correct?

Mighty Taternuts: dlime16: annoying liberal douchebags who think the classroom is a soap box

This is why I like engineering. It is hard to convey a liberal or conservative bias when teaching thermodynamics or finite element analysis.

Hehe. That's the joy of getting past the core classes, period, imho. I was so glad to get the core classes out of the way; for some reason, English instructors think it's their job to remind you that, if you're a white male and you're taking the class, you're part of the problem. If you express a problem with that, well, you weren't hoping for an A or B out of the class, were you?

My opinion was always this: I'm on your side. However, don't expect me to express the opinion, and don't make my grade dependent upon the opinion that the world would be a better place if we always gave preferential treatment, if all the positions of power were held by minorities, and if all those guys would just recognize that women are superior. My opinion, rather, is that the world would be a better place if we'd stop bleating about continued expansion of "equal" opportunities laws and just work on making society color- and gender-blind. Sorry; I was brainwashed by Gene Roddenberry. ;-)

I work at a community college, and we've not gotten a raise in several years, and we're underpaid compared to non-educational jobs doing the same stuff, so I'd really get a kick out of it if some of those billions made it into my paycheck...

theMightyRegeya: Hehe. That's the joy of getting past the core classes, period, imho. I was so glad to get the core classes out of the way; for some reason, English instructors think it's their job to remind you that, if you're a white male and you're taking the class, you're part of the problem. If you express a problem with that, well, you weren't hoping for an A or B out of the class, were you?

I took a Women Studies class at a cal state because it filled my elective requirement faster. The amount of BS I had to sling and endure in that class was so mind numbing. That class is what made me realize that all higher learning has large amounts of BS to slog through, and that people who say one form of higher learning is better then another are typically elitist snobs who need to feel some sense of entitlement in exchange for all the money and time they spent.

At this point I think a cc or vocational school is better time and money spent when you're looking to train for a job. Unless you're going into law or med. Other then those two, you can earn your degree to go and teach so the circle of BS can continue.

I work in a CC IT department... and the sad part is I don't think that I'll see dollar one of any of that... especially now that our raises are frozen for three years.

ArtemisGoldfish: Pxtl: Depends what you go to college for. CCs have their own moronic useless disciplines on par with the Liberal Arts degrees of university, but with none of the prestige.

On the other hand, a diploma and apprenticeship in plumbing or a similar trade will net you a good job in the real world.

About the Liberal Arts degrees: This. I mean, who wants to spend many thousands of dollars to get a BA in...French Literature and Philosophy? I mean, I cannot imagine a more useless degree than one in reading and thinking.

That being said, I'm a little biased because I'm working on an AAS (Electronic Engineering Technician program) in a community college, and I love it there. I don't pay a dime thanks to Pell Grants, and my instructor is an experienced technician who has been teaching for about... 30 years, I think. More money for CC's could be a very very good thing. Our lab is filled with primarily 10 year old test equipment which is essentially all donated from Fluke (though I've heard that some Universities don't do much better.)

So, you CC-haters, get down from your ivory tower, any education is better than no education, and community colleges seem to be more concentrated on making people intelligent and employable, rather than just the former.


I have a political science degree and think it was worth it.

Even if I never get a job as a professor, teacher or go to law school, it helps me with my debating skills and throught processes.

theMightyRegeya: Mighty Taternuts: dlime16: annoying liberal douchebags who think the classroom is a soap box

This is why I like engineering. It is hard to convey a liberal or conservative bias when teaching thermodynamics or finite element analysis.

Hehe. That's the joy of getting past the core classes, period, imho. I was so glad to get the core classes out of the way; for some reason, English instructors think it's their job to remind you that, if you're a white male and you're taking the class, you're part of the problem. If you express a problem with that, well, you weren't hoping for an A or B out of the class, were you?

My opinion was always this: I'm on your side. However, don't expect me to express the opinion, and don't make my grade dependent upon the opinion that the world would be a better place if we always gave preferential treatment, if all the positions of power were held by minorities, and if all those guys would just recognize that women are superior. My opinion, rather, is that the world would be a better place if we'd stop bleating about continued expansion of "equal" opportunities laws and just work on making society color- and gender-blind. Sorry; I was brainwashed by Gene Roddenberry. ;-)

Um, as a white male and an English instructor I take offense at your stereotype of us. Also, I'll let you in on a secret -- what I say in class to get a rise out of you and get your lazy ass to talk and think may nor may not be what I actually think. And I've never graded a student down for having an opinion I disliked. I grade based on the ability to support that opinion from sources and the development of a logical argument, even if the argument makes me grit my teeth at the narrowness of the viewpoint expressed.

My personal take on Identity-based departments (Women's studies, Black Studies, etc) is that they're a bad idea. I like the idea of working groups that deal with gender and race made up of people from across the curriculum and I like the idea of courses that provide non-canonical viewpoints, but departments tend to either have really kick-ass people or folks that are content to play in the intellectual ghetto their identity provides them with and don't move beyond that.

CCs are really good for two things. First, some people just aren't ready for college or don't have the money for a 4-year school. Spending time at a CC is cheaper than wasting money at a four year school, plus people usually show off the name of the 4-year school they then transferred to.

Second, they are good when a person realizes they want to change career paths and don't have the training expected in that field. It's not uncommon for people who were liberal arts throughout college to suddenly want to go into medicine or another field that makes money, but lack the credits to be accepted. Credits from CCs are usually acceptable. My older brother has a master's in education, but needs a couple of credits in science and social studies to become a state-certified teacher in science or social studies. Since it would be too expensive to go back to a 4-year school for a few measly courses, he's going to get them from a CC in the fall.

The President's idea is a good one since CCs are still useful, particularly when 4-year schools are so expensive and the economy is in the crapper. It lets people become educated and gain the skills to be a contributing citizen at a low cost, while a "selective" school might have rejected them for having low SATs and GPA.

Most employers these days want Bachelor's or Master's degrees.

A college degree means nothing if there are no jobs in those fields.

What do these people live on while they are attending college? We are talking 2 - 4 yrs if they attend Full Time. More welfare?

New Democrat Meme:

GET A COLLEGE DEGREE OR DIE!!!

Hrmm....Obama drove past my house about 15 min. ago. You could kinda see him in the armored-prez-mobile, but there he went.

Interesting.

spcefrk: (Cue the 'but I was the first to graduate in my family thanks to CC' whiners. Yeah? So was I. And you assholes are making me get a Ph.D sooner or later.)

Much anger in you. And class- based douchebaggery.

I have two degrees, one from a university and one from a private school and I find it interesting that the richer the kids are and the more they brag about where they went to school, the more anti-intellectual they are (except for the engineering, science and math students). Anecdotal, of course.

/mostly talking about MBAs

Community colleges are the smartest way to go these days> Example:

The local CC in california is still $20.00 a unit. you need 60 units or better to transfer to a CSU or state, and most CC's have guaranteed transfer. 60 units = $1200.00, plus another $400.00 for fees, books etc. makes the cost of all your lower division requirements only $1600.00 over two years. Plus, if you're poor enough, some CC's waive tuition and most of the fees.

SDSU is $3,754 per year (2009), plus up to $35 in lab fees per class. 4 years is $14,296 for tuition alone - CC saves you over $7500 dollars

UCSD is $8,906 a year for tuition, 4 years is $35,624. CC saves you $17,812.

CSU San Marcos is $3,011 a year, 4 years is $12,044. CC saves you over $6000.

If you're local and don't take advantage of deals like this, you're an idiot. CC works.

Let's recognize this for what it is: another handout to another union. Community colleges and junior colleges are really extensions of High School. Their faculties have a tendency to be very much unionized. A lot of the money flowing from the government into these institutions will go right to union members and the unions.

Community and Junior colleges are wonderful institutions that serve a very useful purpose. But don't believe for a minute that Obama gives a rip about educating any students. Just before he announced this massive windfall for CCs and Jucos he told the audience that automotive jobs weren't coming back. I guess he knows that as CEO of the auto companies. His cap and trade legislation, should it be passed, will drive any manufacturing jobs overseas faster than we've ever seen. What he's talking about here is making the proles believe he is spending money on them while he's really funneling it into the pockets of his supporters and delaying the day the proles figure out there is no future for them other than government servitude.

Maybe he should pump money into some jobs for all those CC degrees.

/only 23 years old
//already eternally bitter
///farking useless Inspection Technology degree

matrygg:
Um, as a white male and an English instructor I take offense at your stereotype of us. Also, I'll let you in on a secret -- what I say in class to get a rise out of you and get your lazy ass to talk and think may nor may not be what I actually think. And I've never graded a student down for having an opinion I disliked. I grade based on the ability to support that opinion from sources and the development of a logical argument, even if the argument makes me grit my teeth at the narrowness of the viewpoint expressed.

I think too many people refuse to believe that teachers are capable of that. They'd much rather take solace in thinking the only reason they got a poor grade is because they went against 'your viewpoint'. Never mind that they didn't have a thesis statement and wouldn't know a primary source if it bit them on the arse, it's that the professor hates me. (oh and they think Word's grammar check is up to college level writing)

spcefrk: Community Colleges are good for one thing: shafting the system back by not paying your own university for those bullshiat core classes. Almost everyone I know that went to community college went there because they couldn't hack it in a four-year school. The remaining few realized that credit hours were accepted by our university but cost half as much and were at least twice as easy.

Community Colleges are a festering boil on the higher education system. It's why I had to get a Masters to make sure I don't get some shiat job right out of school. It's why I have to get my Ph.D to keep competitive. Undergraduates are a dime-a-dozen and just as inept with a degree as they were stumbling out of high school. CC's cheapen the whole system. What's going to happen when we've all got at least one Ph.D in some menial task? Something's gotta break.

\Made the mistake of actually taking all my courses at my university
\\Paid out of state tuition -- assholes
\\\Engineer laughing at all these Philosophy and Business majors serving me lunch today. College is for higher education, not fark around 'till I find something I want to do. That's called high school.

(Cue the 'but I was the first to graduate in my family thanks to CC' whiners. Yeah? So was I. And you assholes are making me get a Ph.D sooner or later.)

Don't you have to be at the gym in 26 minutes?

azazyel: matrygg:
Um, as a white male and an English instructor I take offense at your stereotype of us. Also, I'll let you in on a secret -- what I say in class to get a rise out of you and get your lazy ass to talk and think may nor may not be what I actually think. And I've never graded a student down for having an opinion I disliked. I grade based on the ability to support that opinion from sources and the development of a logical argument, even if the argument makes me grit my teeth at the narrowness of the viewpoint expressed.

I think too many people refuse to believe that teachers are capable of that. They'd much rather take solace in thinking the only reason they got a poor grade is because they went against 'your viewpoint'. Never mind that they didn't have a thesis statement and wouldn't know a primary source if it bit them on the arse, it's that the professor hates me. (oh and they think Word's grammar check is up to college level writing)

The general consensus seems to be that it's part of the culture of blame kids are surrounded with these days. It's never their fault; instead, it's the fault of some external, because they are special and unique snowflakes.

I'm generalizing, of course, but that seems to be the general thrust of things. It even goes so far as what the conception of a grade is. A grade is earned by the student, but most of my freshmen (or first-years, if you're sensitive -- I think that term is clunky but I understand why it's there) seem to think that I give them the grade. It's a rhetorical trick that puts the blame on the instructor for the grade rather than the student. And since the grade is the thing for them, rather than the knowledge gained, they get upset.

Maybe, in one of these threads, I'll tell the story of the girl who begged me to give her a C without doing the work, then accused me of abandoning her because I refused to do so.

CC's are great. I started at one and managed to get all of my Trig and Calc out of the way along with a ton of other non-core classes for about half the price. I was pretty poor. The second Calc class didn't transfer but I ended up testing out of it anyway thanks to my CC classes. I did take some core classes that did transfer. I then ended up at well respected university. One thing that I like about CC's (at least where I am from) the profs were actually people in the industry and were teaching in their known subjects, my accounting teacher was a CFO at a local Corporation. The VP at my company now teaches at a CC in business and management. My C++ teacher was Lead Programmer at the corporation he worked at during the day. I was in a pretty good league of people. I was somewhat disappointed at some of my profs at the uni when I went, they were lifetime profs and most didn't have real world experience that was relevant within 20 years, they just taught by the book (or at least their TAs did).

BlorfMaster:
University Level College: Learn Kepler's law and calculate the orbits of various planets. Learn Newtonian physics and calculate various things. Exams were almost all math.

HUGE difference.

You went to the wrong CC... I got Kepler, Copernicus, newton, Fermi and Einstein in the 100 level Physics course at the CC I attended... and this wasn't even the physics course for chemistry, physics or engineering majors. That 200 level class was down the hall, by the dents in the wall where students would beat their heads before class.

The instructor for the class I took knew that for most of his students, this would be the only hard science they took for their AA or AS, or when they transferred... so he made his hard science HARD, with most of the math not in the tests, but in the labs, which counted for half the grade... and his classes were always full. It's all in what you make of it.

"Give to the united negro college fund... because a mind is a
terrible thing to waste on a negro"

/must be over 30 to remember those commercials

Gamer Grrrl: o5iiawah: IXI Jim IXI: o5iiawah: The lessons i learned being 1,000 miles from home and doing things on my own far outweigh the few grand I could have saved by living at home for 2 years and transferring. The life/business skills that I picked up from being anonomyous at a 4-year school are worth far more, IMO.

In other words, the drinking.

Budgeting, responsibility, networking, ethic.

Yes, drinking too

I knew too many snowflakes, unwed mothers, or kids with helicopter parents who are 25 and dont act a day over 17 because they went to CC or a school a stones' throw from where they live.

Right, it's the community college's fault, not the douche parents' or the douche kid's.

/Might I suggest an English Grammar class next semester? Or heck, summer school?
//I really don't think unwed mothers don't act a day over 17. And if they are at your college, you should applaud them and kiss their feet because they are working hard to improve their lives.

putting psychology 101 texbooks on one's credit card does not a better life make. Im an engineer, I dont need grammar classes for the interwebs.

fenianfark:

U of Phoenix is a joke. Anyone that is hiring will not so much as look at a U of Phoenix graduate. Try getting an engineering degree there and then telling other engineers that you are also an engineer. You will be laughed at.

I agree with a lot of your post, but that school scams the poor and ignorant into taking out student loans for worthless degrees.

Ditto ITT Tech. Proprietary education does not equal community college.

o5iiawah: putting psychology 101 texbooks on one's credit card does not a better life make. Im an engineer, I dont need grammar classes for the interwebs.

Amazon dude, Amazon

Solar Plexus!: fenianfark:

U of Phoenix is a joke. Anyone that is hiring will not so much as look at a U of Phoenix graduate. Try getting an engineering degree there and then telling other engineers that you are also an engineer. You will be laughed at.

I agree with a lot of your post, but that school scams the poor and ignorant into taking out student loans for worthless degrees.

Ditto ITT Tech. Proprietary education does not equal community college.

Yet that's the model that insisting that a college education must map directly to a career is following. Why the logical disconnect, since that seems to be the motive behind a lot of the 'liberal arts is for losers, omg comp-sci 4 life!' mentality I see on the internet.

o5iiawah:
/Might I suggest an English Grammar class next semester? Or heck, summer school?
//I really don't think unwed mothers don't act a day over 17. And if they are at your college, you should applaud them and kiss their feet because they are working hard to improve their lives.

putting psychology 101 texbooks on one's credit card does not a better life make. Im an engineer, I dont need grammar classes for the interwebs.

First off, philosophy is interested in what makes a better life. Psychology is concerned with the study of the mind and how it functions.

Secondly, the notion that an engineer doesn't need to be able to communicate to others is bullshiat. I can, and have, gotten programming gigs in part because I could communicate to the salespeople what we needed as IT to do our jobs. Without the ability to communicate, you're just a robot who gets mad at the bad info you get from the operators.

/Yes, I used to be a web developer/DBA.
//I hated it, now I'm working on my PhD in English.
///it takes all kinds.

Haruko_Haruhara: Hrmm....Obama drove past my house about 15 min. ago. You could kinda see him in the armored-prez-mobile, but there he went.

Interesting.

I want your Vespa. And your guitar. ;-)

Having gotten one degree through a community college (one that's nicknamed "Harvard On the Hill" - yes it's tough) and being a person that's in a paramedic program conducted by a community college (the way it's done in most - if not all- states), I have a little insight in to what some of you are saying. True there are some bad community colleges out there (the ones that aren't sanctioned by the state are the ones that are diploma mills) but for the most part they are wonderful. Those of you bashing community colleges obviously have no idea what you're talking about and I will thusly thank you to shut it.

wee beastie: All of you putting down 2-year, public colleges really need to re-assess your belief that everyone who could, should go to a traditional 4-year institution. Community colleges and for-profit colleges (ITT / U of Phoenix) are the ones training your nurses, lab techs, mechanic, HVAC repairman, plumber, electrician, paralegals, etc. I could go on and on; the list of jobs they train for is mindnumbing. The fact of the matter is that over 50% of the jobs in the world do not need a 4-year college education.

These schools have tremendous job placement rates. Don't believe me? For-profit ed providers (ITT / UofP / Lincoln) are mandated to provide this data to the govt (including starting salaries) or they can't participate in Federal lending programs to the students. Show me any 4-year college that will publish that hard data. Fact of the matter is they won't.

Community colleges provide a necessary service at a cheap cost, and it represents a sector that has been shunned and ridiculed for decades while the economy has boomed. Now that the market is turning around and traditional 4-year students are having difficulty finding jobs, we are beginning to realize that we've been overeducating below average individuals who would have been better served with a 2-year degree and less student debt.

Well said.
/Spent too much $ on a liberal arts degree (though it's technically a BS, just to make us feel better)
//Spending a shiat ton on law school.
///Do they have community college law school?

artvsscience: wee beastie: All of you putting down 2-year, public colleges really need to re-assess your belief that everyone who could, should go to a traditional 4-year institution. Community colleges and for-profit colleges (ITT / U of Phoenix) are the ones training your nurses, lab techs, mechanic, HVAC repairman, plumber, electrician, paralegals, etc. I could go on and on; the list of jobs they train for is mindnumbing. The fact of the matter is that over 50% of the jobs in the world do not need a 4-year college education.

These schools have tremendous job placement rates. Don't believe me? For-profit ed providers (ITT / UofP / Lincoln) are mandated to provide this data to the govt (including starting salaries) or they can't participate in Federal lending programs to the students. Show me any 4-year college that will publish that hard data. Fact of the matter is they won't.

Community colleges provide a necessary service at a cheap cost, and it represents a sector that has been shunned and ridiculed for decades while the economy has boomed. Now that the market is turning around and traditional 4-year students are having difficulty finding jobs, we are beginning to realize that we've been overeducating below average individuals who would have been better served with a 2-year degree and less student debt.

Well said.
/Spent too much $ on a liberal arts degree (though it's technically a BS, just to make us feel better)
//Spending a shiat ton on law school.
///Do they have community college law school?

Well, we know there's a GED in Law...

artvsscience: wee beastie: All of you putting down 2-year, public colleges really need to re-assess your belief that everyone who could, should go to a traditional 4-year institution. Community colleges and for-profit colleges (ITT / U of Phoenix) are the ones training your nurses, lab techs, mechanic, HVAC repairman, plumber, electrician, paralegals, etc. I could go on and on; the list of jobs they train for is mindnumbing. The fact of the matter is that over 50% of the jobs in the world do not need a 4-year college education.

These schools have tremendous job placement rates. Don't believe me? For-profit ed providers (ITT / UofP / Lincoln) are mandated to provide this data to the govt (including starting salaries) or they can't participate in Federal lending programs to the students. Show me any 4-year college that will publish that hard data. Fact of the matter is they won't.

Community colleges provide a necessary service at a cheap cost, and it represents a sector that has been shunned and ridiculed for decades while the economy has boomed. Now that the market is turning around and traditional 4-year students are having difficulty finding jobs, we are beginning to realize that we've been overeducating below average individuals who would have been better served with a 2-year degree and less student debt.

Well said.
/Spent too much $ on a liberal arts degree (though it's technically a BS, just to make us feel better)
//Spending a shiat ton on law school.
///Do they have community college law school?

If you're going to a two-year for-profit school like ITT Tech, you'll spend as much as you would for a 4-year degree at some state schools. I was shocked; my Bachelor's at a State School was cheaper and carried more value than an Associate's at ITT Tech.

Juniper Jupiter: You probably should HAVE used your college education to further your grammar skills.

/What? I'm just saying!
//I only had ONE year of college...and that's just because the college kept having technical "problems" getting my high school transcripts through...yeah, right.
///If it makes you feel any better, I've long forgotten how to use punctuation! :D

I'll admit me grammer skills ain't the best. This is why I'm not an English major.

matrygg: o5iiawah:
/Might I suggest an English Grammar class next semester? Or heck, summer school?
//I really don't think unwed mothers don't act a day over 17. And if they are at your college, you should applaud them and kiss their feet because they are working hard to improve their lives.

putting psychology 101 texbooks on one's credit card does not a better life make. Im an engineer, I dont need grammar classes for the interwebs.

First off, philosophy is interested in what makes a better life. Psychology is concerned with the study of the mind and how it functions.

Secondly, the notion that an engineer doesn't need to be able to communicate to others is bullshiat. I can, and have, gotten programming gigs in part because I could communicate to the salespeople what we needed as IT to do our jobs. Without the ability to communicate, you're just a robot who gets mad at the bad info you get from the operators.

/Yes, I used to be a web developer/DBA.
//I hated it, now I'm working on my PhD in English.
///it takes all kinds.

my language whilst farking is different than the language I use at work. I actually have my BA in what some might consider a "liberal" discipline.

Give the man a break.

He is a first-term Democratic president who has inherited a catastrophic economy including, among other things, a failing domestic auto industry from a highly criticised Republican predecessor. And he has to deal with political turmoil and a possible revolt in Iran, plus an increasingly belligerent Russia. And his religion is widely misunderstood by the public.

My God.

He's Jimmy Carter.

accelerus - I won't knock Community colleges - i got a couple of credits in on the cheap that transferred to A&M for my main degree... it was easy, effective, and one of the only reasons i graduated on time.

That being said -- if you want to increase the quality of education and students coming out of any higher education... start toughening up middle and high schools.

Sweet and Sour Jesus, THIS! High school may be as far as many people get in their education and sometimes the "little things," like how NOT to plagiarize research for a paper, needs to be hammered in and NOT allowed to slide.

Came for the community college hate wharrgarbl, and thought for the first 1/10th of the thread that I might be among reasonable people who don't have a chip on their shoulders.

But then they showed up, waiving their pricier degrees that they're so proud to be paying off for the next 20 years.

Some community colleges leave something to be desired. But most serve their students well. Granted, some of those students are barely literate idiots. But most are not.

I have an AA in journalism (from a program that wins national awards almost annually and, many alumni have informed me, provided a better education than the 4-year programs they transfered to later). I have no other collegiate education.

I went on to a very successful 10-year career as a journalist, with syndication in dozens of newspapers and on even more web sites. Afterwards I embarked on a new career in software and website QA, and am having success in this field as well. My lack of a 4-year degree has not made one scrap of difference.

Community college isn't the right place for everybody. But to look down on these schools only goes to show that your 4-year+ education didn't teach you some of the more important things in life, like the fact that earning letters to put after your name doesn't make you special. It just means you took a particular path in life.

This will be lost in the noise, but consider:

When easy federal loans became available for 4 year schools, the cost of University skyrocketed.

When easy federal money becomes available for 2 year schools, the cost of Community College will skyrocket.

All partisanship aside, this proposal is not a Good Plan. In the end, it will result in more impoverishment and less education.

Nothing2SeeHere: Ok, so now not only do I get to pay for other people's health care, I also get to pay for other people to go to college?

Can't I just adopt a poor ghetto child and call it a day?

Typical example of a short-sighted moron. If this country would have listened to asshole opinions like this, this country would not have become the superpower we are now. Thank god we had leaders who understood the need to educate the population which they knew would lead to everyone having a higher quality of life.

I feel with Obama, this country is getting back to the basics of what made this country great. I know everyone gets a chubby when they hear how we're the only superpower in the world but how do you think we got there.

It pisses me off to hear jerkoffs like this, living in this great country today, benefiting from the programs put in place decades ago and then turn around and reject doing the same things for future generations.

o5iiawah: matrygg: o5iiawah:
/Might I suggest an English Grammar class next semester? Or heck, summer school?
//I really don't think unwed mothers don't act a day over 17. And if they are at your college, you should applaud them and kiss their feet because they are working hard to improve their lives.

putting psychology 101 texbooks on one's credit card does not a better life make. Im an engineer, I dont need grammar classes for the interwebs.

First off, philosophy is interested in what makes a better life. Psychology is concerned with the study of the mind and how it functions.

Secondly, the notion that an engineer doesn't need to be able to communicate to others is bullshiat. I can, and have, gotten programming gigs in part because I could communicate to the salespeople what we needed as IT to do our jobs. Without the ability to communicate, you're just a robot who gets mad at the bad info you get from the operators.

/Yes, I used to be a web developer/DBA.
//I hated it, now I'm working on my PhD in English.
///it takes all kinds.

my language whilst farking is different than the language I use at work. I actually have my BA in what some might consider a "liberal" discipline.

Why? Does Fark not need clarity and proper grammar?

I know a guy who did terrible in high school. He finally got his act together and enrolled in a community college. He got straight A's and transferred to UT Austin, and graduated with a degree in MIS. His grades at UT were good enough that he could probably have transferred to Rice. He was a smart guy that just goofed off in high school. It's good that we have institutions like CCs for people needing a second chance after high school.

I don't understand the hate for CCs. I spent my first years of college at them (Tarrant County, TX) and with a few exceptions, the education was great. I think the largest class had less than 40 students, and you could actually TALK to your teacher!

Compare this to first-year classes at a major uni (300 students, you are lucky of you can talk to a TA, let alone an instructor).

Also, since I took most of my classes at night, the teachers were mostly working professionals who actually DID what they taught during the daytime. That meant I learned C and C++ from a guy who owned a consulting company and wrote code for a living, all day, every day. Plus, most of the other students were older working people who were there by THEIR choice, not just because mommy and daddy told them they should be there.

Almost ALL of my classes transfered to a major school, and not only were the classes at the CC better, but they were 1/4 the cost of those same classes at even a state university.

thrasherrr: This will be lost in the noise, but consider:

When easy federal loans became available for 4 year schools, the cost of University skyrocketed.

When easy federal money becomes available for 2 year schools, the cost of Community College will skyrocket.

All partisanship aside, this proposal is not a Good Plan. In the end, it will result in more impoverishment and less education.

The costs of college education skyrocketed in California when a bunch of selfish asshats used "poor old people" tactics to get prop 13 passed. Now the only people who don't get property tax readjustments are corporations who set up dummy companies to hold their property so that when/if they sell the property, instead of selling the property and having the taxes reassessed at current land values, they sell the company and continue to have large lots taxed on what they were worth 30 years ago.

Can anyone explain how a Comunity College is different than any First Year at a college or university?

Anyone who looks down on people getting ANY type of education is either a moron or an egotistical farkwad.

AND NO! I didn't misspell Community because I myself skipped out on college. It was a typo.

/preemptive strike

poot_rootbeer: Arklop: As a fully-trained and licensed ditch digger, I resent your dismissive attitude of my highly skilled profession.

Shenanigans. If you were really fully licensed, you'd be using the official title as adopted by the trade organization: Certified Soil Displacement Engineer.

/or "CSDE" for short


Sorry, but the Digger's Guild voted that title away years ago. Now we go by "Licensed Earth Relocation Technicians."

Odd The Viking: I don't understand the hate for CCs.


If you spent 5-6 years paying fraternity fees and wondering why you weren't getting the Animal House experience at an expensive university, it's possible you'd be kinda pissed off that somebody else managed the same degree at a fraction of the student loans by going to community college for 4 semesters and then transferring. I think we're seeing a lot of that kind of frustration here today. If somebody yells "Food fight!", you know he's going to target you, Odd.

I had a great experience going to a CC for two years before transferring to a university. I got all the bullshiat out of the way (basic writing courses, college math, all the prerequisites for my degree) and saved a ton in tuition. Sure, I had less time to schmooze with professors and department heads which will make applying to grad school a little more difficult but I wouldn't do it any other way.

azazyel: dlime16: As someone going to a CC I have to say they are pretty hit or miss. I went on the advice that a lot of you are repeating here. However, I'm currently taking classes that are about HS level, most of the people are barely literate, and my professors range from barely competent to annoying liberal douchebags who think the classroom is a soap box (yeah, I know a 4 year has those too but they just feel so much less appropriate at a 2 year). I'm sure there are good ones but I'm not at one.

/Not sure if I can finish without kicking one of the unwed mothers in the stomach.


Let me guess something here. When you write a paper that goes against those 'liberal' values and you get a poor grade it's because they're 'liberal douchebags", correct?

Ohhh, close but no! I did fine in their classes. My complaint is that their class is no place for them to stand there and go on about how they disagree about the war, bush, and so on. Even if I do agree with most of their points I don't need them wasting class time to stand on a soap box.

what the hell do we need that much food from McDonald's for?

Oh rush on down to the CC and get those AA's so you can be a manager at McDonalds. And the fun part will be thinking of your grandchildren paying the debt when they get there following your example.. my oh my.. spend spend Obama, and your follower's will relish each and every unearned entitlement you hand them. Oh well. nuff said

At just the time that tons or workers are laid off, and thus have time an motivation to learn some skills, or maybe just learn English, many states are cutting community college funding.

It's nuts. A depression is the time to retrench and retrain the workforce.

/oops, did I say depression?

Death to New Rome: I'm having my doubts about... these local community colleges and degree mills? Come on...

There is no bigger degree mill than UCLA. I have yet to meet a PhD graduated from there within the last 10 years that knows their ass from a hole in the ground. They don't teach science.

I will never hire anyone whose PhD is from UCLA.

scott-ty: Oh rush on down to the CC and get those AA's so you can be a manager at McDonalds. And the fun part will be thinking of your grandchildren paying the debt when they get there following your example.. my oh my.. spend spend Obama, and your follower's will relish each and every unearned entitlement you hand them. Oh well. nuff said

0/10. Come on, it's like you're not even trying.

Can we please stop dumping money that we do not have into things that may or may not make a difference. I never went to college and have held a 28,000.00 a year job when I was 25. People College educations may or may not pan out.

I went to CC, Interestingly enough it had the best program in the nation for my degree (welding engineering).

Now I work on nuclear submarines as a welding engineer, after some years in the field as a welder.

people don't realize that there are still many profitable, viable and necessary career paths that aren't offered at traditional four year universities.

All the prestigious engineering schools like MIT and big state schools like ohio state and university of michigan don't offer my degrees, and the ones that do don't offer hands on welding training.

I was very happy with the training and skills i picked up and I would do it again. If I ever have college bound children I'll encourage them to goto CC just for the savings and to get an A.A in something useful on their way to what ever

He not even trying to hide the fact that he's ruining the economy anymore.


just WTF Obama...wtf...

HenryFnord: Can we call them what they are - vocational schools?

They aren't that. Vocational schools are ITT, Devry, et al. Community Colleges, while they have some vocational Associate degrees, most start here to gain a Bachelor's, by ridding themselves of the stupid courses you have to take just to take the real stuff. It's cheaper is some cases, and most credits convert over. You can't do that with a VS.

ITT and DeVry are diploma mills, not vocational schools.

And yes, you can get an Associate's at a vocational school and have the credits transfer. I got an AAS in commercial HVAC, and I'm rolling it into Minnesota State University Moorhead for a BS in Operations Management.