“We have two young daughters 8/11 and are looking to the future.
The cost of a four year college is not (in our opinion) worth the huge amounts they are asking. We have come to the conclusion that two years at a CC is the first step and then chose the college with the curriculum needed for the chosen degree. You can save $60 or $70 by doing this. Amen.”
Indeed, that is a very wise option your 2 daughters have taken but right now there is a social stigma about CC that a top flight marketer couldn’t have created but at the end of the day 70 grand verses foolish pride and the 70k will win everytime and relieve your children will not have to deal with crushing debt for years to come.
I watched an MTV show about parents who were paying for their young adults to go to college and there was a man who just worked for a living who suggested to his daughter that she should go to CC first to save the family money and the little spendthrift virtually cried along with “I AM NOT GOING TO...” screaming.
Spoiled brat IMO.
some people send their kids to Bible College for a year to get them a good moral foundation before letting them be exposed to the depravity of the typical college campus.
I think a lot of people would agree with you, but I'd like to throw this out to the crowd -
I took a class in stats and one in calculus at a CC in prep for doing a doctoral program in business (I'm not a quantitative person and needed to improve these skills). I was shocked at the lack of attention to schoolwork, the cheating, and the lack of intellectual curiosity that I found. Compared to undergrads at my Alma Mater, Michigan, these folks, both youngsters and working people, were just not ready for higher education. Had my child attended for 2 years before college, I wonder if he would have truly been prepared, would have good study habits (most students at the CC did their homework right before class), and been intellectually engaged.
I'm all for the CC system, don't get me wrong, but there is a difference between getting an education and taking courses; I felt like the CC students were taking courses, 'If I have 45 hours I'll have a degree,' as opposed to, 'If I take this major, I'll really have an understanding of X.'
I think I would opt for sending the child to a 4 year school from the begining, but choose a good, lower-priced, state or local school, in order to have the full college experience from the begining.
Other people may have different experiences. I would like to hear them. This was mine, and even tho I'm a supporter of CCs and have some additional knowledge of them as my mother taught at one for years, my choice would be to send my child to an affordable 4 yr school.
The community college might not be the most financially sound alternative. They can knock out their respective initial years or an equivalent volume of general-education coursework through the Advanced Placement (AP) program in high school as I did. I thereby managed to cut a year off my college education, avoided most liberal indoctrination professors, and probably learned more in preparation for the high-stress high-stakes tests than I would have learned in the equivalent college courses. If your local high school doesn’t offer advanced placement courses and tests or teach them adequately (a very tough demand on teachers), then your daughters can get credit through self-study or home schooling and the College Level Examination Program (CLEP).
Many students who take the community-college route or who begin at satellite campuses that don’t offer their full major require three years, not two years, to complete their education anyway. This extra year results because of the prerequisite structures among required courses and some initial confusion that greets students not entirely confident of their major. I do not recommend that anyone attend college without first selecting a major; however, most major universities offer a variety of choice and specialization sufficiently wide to make some curiosity and exploration inevitable.
Good for you.
People who send their kids away to a 4 year college are guilty of child abuse. These places are brainwashing centers for leftist ideology and moral corruption.
There are perfectly good online universities for getting the basic courses.
Our son gained a full year of credit while he was in high-school through AP classes and exams. But, he decided on ROTC first, so he's going all 4 years to complete the military science program, and will have two minors along with his major.
One daughter spent two years at a local CC after she could not make up her mind where to go and what to major in. Then she ended up getting a Master's degree in something else anyway because she didn't want to pursue employment in her undergrad major
And the other daughter stayed with the same major all four years, graduated in four, and is quite happy doing something totally unrelated to her major. There is no way she is going back to school.
So college for your kids is probably going to be just like the rest of parenting. Good luck!