That’s another ‘trap’ that I’ve seen many of the best and brightest of my children’s generation fall into.
Here’s the math:
You’re offered a $10,000 scholarship to a state school, leaving you with a $15,000 student loan at the end of the first year. You keep your grades up and have the same thing at the end of the second year. You’ve got $30,000 in loans for your Associates.
The community college is $4,500 for tuition and books. And about $5000 for room and board. At the end of two years, you’ve got a student loan (providing that was your only method of funding) of $19,000 for an Associates.
But these kids are convinced that it’s better to have that extra $11,000 in debt for the same education because they got a scholarship and somehow it would be wrong to ‘waste’ it.
And nobody’s even brought up the fact that college isn’t for everybody and most of these kids washout and never finish anyway. (That’s why the actual average for student loans is $29,000 per student. More than half drop out and never even get the degree. All they get is debt.)
I’d argue that for academically strong students, a case can be made for a marginally more expensive education—even if it means living at home, rather than on campus. And, I’ll admit, room and board for a community college seems oxymoronic to me.
I think there are advantages to having smarter classmates, as one may have in rigorous classes at at least a state school, and more academically prominent professors.
Really, online ed ought to be competitive with community college solutions in pretty short order.