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.