I just moved to the bay area a couple of months ago and I’d like to enroll in some classes to complete my transfer degree.
Now since I haven’t yet established the 1 or 2 year residency required for college discounts, I really can’t be spending a lot of money on classes. So are there any decent, affordable local colleges I should look at?
Tons are there - can’t speak to the quality these days.
And that’s just the South Bay…
Check for specialities. I know Foothill has a great telescope, for example.
Good advice. West Valley doesn’t have a great overall reputation, but does have a respected architectural program.
There’s also
Ohlone(sp?) college, has a pretty good theatre arts program.
San Jose City College
Evergreen Valley College (I went here! they have a police academy here. Lots of fun watching them do drills in empty parking lots.)
I went to the College of Marin for two years. It was an outstanding community college, mostly because it has a lot fewer knuckleheads than the other ones I looked at.
Be careful and check the residency/admission requirements. In Texas, if you attend school as an out-of-stater, it is very, very difficult to get in-state tuition even after you’ve completed the residency requirements since they consider your reason for moving to be to attend school. If it’s like that in California, it might make more sense to just wait out the residency period so you can get in-state tuition.
Very good point. At DeAnza (my wife goes there right now) residents pay $13 per unit, out-of-staters pay $105 per unit.
Link
California community colleges are pretty evenly regulated by the state, and are closely connected with the extensive the UC’s and State 4-year schools, so I imagine the information on that link would be similar to others.
I don’t know what part of the area you’re in, but I can highly recommend Santa Rosa Junior College up here in the North Bay.
I’ve taken several classes and am currently enrolled in the wine studies program.
It’s considered one of the best community colleges in the nation. Beautiful campus, great curriculum and staff, and decent fees.
CCSF is supposed to be quite a good school.
Do you already know where you want to transfer or what you want to study? If you do, then you want to look for community colleges that are known for your program. For example, the community college I attend is known for a UC-level bio program. I chose to go there even though it is not ranked as highly as another local community college in transfers. I also chose to go to this college although it is smaller and offers fewer classes because I don’t have to deal with waiting lists like I would at the bigger community college. I’d suggest getting course booklets or looking online at the local ccs listing of classes to see if they offer classes you are interested in. The local ccs here have webpages where you can look at the rankings of the professors, see what students are saying, and look at the qualifications of some of the professions.
If you do know what you want to major in and have some idea about where you wish to transfer then go speak to the guidance counselors at the Universities you are interested in transfering to and at the colleges you are interested in. Some Universities have caps on the amount of units you can transfer from community colleges if you have been two more than one and will reject you for having too many units. It’s best to get into a Transfer Agreement Program which basically says “take these classes with a GPA of __ or better and we will automatically transfer you into these UCs.” My community college has a great Honors program where you automatically gain entrance to several UCs one you complete the progam and your IGETCs with at least a minimum GPA of 3.6 or something like that.
If you don’t know what you want to do or where you want to go, then look for one with a high rate of transfers who succeed after transfering. Our local cc newspaper lists the rankings of the community colleges in this area once in a while. I’m not sure where you’d find that information up there unfortunately. If you can’t find a rankings list, then go to the transfer centers and see where students are going, the success rates, and which Universities are seeking the students. I was impressed to see that some Ivy Leagues visit our college at least twice and year and actively encourage students to try out for their program. I also talked to some of the students who had gone on to Columbia from my college and asked them how well they were prepared and what they thought of my college in general.
Good luck!
Forgot an important link. Assist.org can tell you what courses transfer to UCs or CSUs. I’ve found it very helpful, even more than some counselors.
Note that that cost is for colleges on the quarter system. For colleges on the semester system, the cost is $20/unit for in-state students, and about $183/unit for out-of-state students. Also not that for colleges in the California Community College system, the fees will be the same no matter where you go. It’s only when you get to private colleges that you’ll see any fee variation (usually higher).
I was going to mention the SRJC. My dad used to teach there, so obviously it’s top notch :).
If you do like Santa Rosa (it’s a bit further north than all the others mentioned), make sure to look into a Doyle Scholarship. The Doyle Trust has more money than they know what to do with, and they’ll pretty much pay for you to go to school there.
Very true. I’ve yet to meet a student that qualifies for the Doyle that hasn’t received it. All of the classmates I’ve talked to, my son’s girlfriend, even my husband way back when. It’s absolutely wonderful.
Where do you live, so we can narrow things down.
DVC in Pleasant Hill is well regarded.
<B>Daly City.</B>
Thanks for the response so far everyone
I went to Vista Community College, then transferred to Cal State Hayward. Oddly, both have since changed their names to Berkeley City College and CSU East Bay, respectively. Anyway, Berkeley CC was a really good school. Classes were usually fairly small, there were a lot of great teachers, BART is only a few blocks away, and it’s in the People’s Republic of Berkeley. What’s not to like? (Well, unless you’re Ann Coulter or something.)