Online courses can also help. My daughter saved a lot of money by taking them. No expensive facilities needed. Less room for leftist extra-curricular propaganda when communications must be in writing. The prof doesn’t even need to know what the student looks like or whose paper is being graded.
Two of my kids have community college AA degrees. Both are finishing their bachelor’s online.
In Community College, one of them had an instructor who taught the same exact course at a university for $500 a credit hour vs under $100 at the CC.
Another kid is an Astronautical Engineer. He obliviously had to attend a full university, but he went to a very small, private geek college that had no ancillary junk like huge sports programs. The closest they got was a student run intramural Ultimate Frisbee team. No junk classes either and no expensive dorms. They had apartments and cooked for themselves.
Number four skipped college and got his CDL. He’s somewhere in Michigan right now doing his best CW McCall imitation.