Here are my observations about community colleges, in the Bay Area at least.
First, they are really great for people from whom a CSU or UC would be difficult to afford. But I think they are actually harder to do well in. I know some kids who enroll in a CC just to stay on their parents’ insurance - tuition is actually cheaper than the insurance would be. There are also plenty of people who don’t treat college seriously because of the low cost. My daughter took some CC classes in high school, and found she was by far the most motivated person there. My wife took a writing class which was half adults and half kids. The kids never showed up. My daughter’s boyfriend went to our local CC for a while for the cheapness, and found it a soul deadening experience. This isn’t to say a motivated kid can’t do well there, and to the 2 year / 4 year thing, but he or she has to be almost more motivated than someone going to a traditional 4 year school.
The thing that bugs me about people here, though, is that many who can afford expensive cars feel that they can’t “afford” a 4 year state school. Being in a dorm environment is a far different experience from living at home, and some of these people who never had it don’t get it. (And they are by no means poor.) No one in this thread has exhibited behavior, but I know plenty of people who have, including someone on site council who is now a school board member. I get in trouble all the time for saying that CCs are not the same thing as Berkeley. A teacher at my daughter’s high school even said that going to the local CC was really no different from going to Harvard.
Saying that, going to a CC is far better than not going anywhere.
It’s a past situation. It’s all resolved now (where were you 3 years ago? :D) And I was pretty squarely in non-resident territory, as far as the University of California was concerned, and with dependent status as far as Dept. of Ed. was concerned (I was 23, non-veteran, not a ward of the court, and unmarried with no dependents).
I was having trouble with the timeline. I know the residency game can be odd. When I was in grad school, we all had to become Illinois residents to save the department money on tuition wavers, and my daughter’s boyfriend managed to become an Oregon resident to save money. Having lived in California 11 years now, I’m not at all surprised their residency requirements are all screwed up.
Ah sorry about that. I slipped into present tense in my post, so it was confusing. Yeah, they are trying to even close the high school loophole; some people are saying that illegal immigrants are exploiting it to go to college. Although I wonder how you can apply in the first place without a SSN. Whateva.
The banks are vultures when it comes to student loans. Yes, a loan was the only thing that enabled me to go to college, and I’m diligent with paying it off, but I can only afford to make the minimum monthly payment at this time, which is $100. I calculated that if I can only ever make the minimum, it will take until I’m in my 60’s to completely pay the loan off.
While I’m very grateful that my loan enabled me to go to college, it’s going to be punishing me for it for decades.
50K? 10 years ago, I had no problem getting well over 4k to attend school when my parents made more than 50k. I’ve had no problem getting over 10k now for me or my wife when we make more than 50k.
The loans are unsubsidized, so interest accrues during deferment, but they’re easily available. My understanding from the financial aid offices is that regardless of income, you can get a federal loan pretty much up to the expected cost of education (limits of course on bad credit, total loan amounts, etc), so even an income of 500k wouldn’t lock you out.
Don’t they usually have a visa or something? I honestly don’t know about this sort of thing. But I’m talking about someone applying as a resident of CA and the US by extension, which I would assume you need to have a SSN for. Or am I assuming incorrectly?
You are absolutely right about this. I don’t necessarily see this as a negative. First off it allows the motivated student to shine. Secondly, it shows the motivated student what the real world is going to be like when they find their cow-orkers were the non-motivated students from their past.
So the conclusion is that dumb, lazy, unmotivated poor kids are going to find it very difficult to afford to go to college? That if you’re dumb, lazy, and unmotivated you’re only going to get to go to college if your parents are wealthy?
That sounds totally unfair. Why can’t dumb lazy unmotivated poor kids go to college too?
Not sure where you’re going with this, but I think the larger point is that there are a lot of barriers to college access for poor kids from poor barriers. Being exposed to certain networks and familiar with how college funding works makes it a hell of a lot easier.
Having worked with college students for many years, I can assure you that I see acts of brilliance, examples of great fortitude, and dynamic personalities on a daily basis. I also see stupidity, laziness, and a lack of motivation at the same frequency. Sometimes from the same students.
Kids whose parents think college is really important are going to get pushed to go to college. Kids whose parents don’t won’t get pushed, so the unmotivated kids in the first category will go, and the unmotivated ones in the second won’t. Wealth doesn’t have much to do with this, besides the fact that it is more likely that wealthy parents will have gone and will see their kids in college as a social plus.
My wife and I both went away to college, and both went to grad school. It is not just that our kids always knew they were going, but we push their friends to go also, since some of them have never had an adult tell them about college, and that college is important. They are all solidly middle class. My parents weren’t rich, but it was always expected that we go to college, even though my father couldn’t go. I was motivated, but my brother wasn’t very much in high school, and he still went.
So it is family and social culture more than money.
All I’m saying is that if you’re not into book-learnin’, if you aren’t motivated yourself to go to college, if you don’t make any effort to figure out ways to afford college, and you don’t have stacks of cash from your parents, well, how exactly is it surprising that people like that don’t end up in college?
There are plenty of stupid, lazy, unmotivated and financially unsophisticated people that manage to go to college. Just go to any college campus and you’ll find lots of them. But should it be surprising to find that college campuses don’t represent a random sample of the populace? That the smarter you are, the more likely you are to go to college? The more motivated? The more sophisticated? The more you have access to ready financial resources?
Smart, motivated, and sophisticated kids are pretty much guaranteed to be able to find a way to afford college, regardless of how much money their parents have. That stupid lazy rich kids get to go to college too doesn’t strike me as horribly unfair. We should be encouraging smart motivated poor kids go to college. I don’t see much upside in trying to prevent stupid lazy rich kids from going to college.
As long as smart poor kids get to go to college, the system will work. And this is the root of the OP…a movie where some poor kid ends up sweeping floors despite being a mathematical genius, because he “couldn’t afford college”. That doesn’t happen. There might be mathematical geniuses that don’t go to college, but if so it’s not because they couldn’t afford it, it’s for other reasons.
:D) And I was pretty squarely in non-resident territory, as far as the University of California was concerned, and with dependent status as far as Dept. of Ed. was concerned (I was 23, non-veteran, not a ward of the court, and unmarried with no dependents).
I know the residency game can be odd. When I was in grad school, we all had to become Illinois residents to save the department money on tuition wavers, and my daughter’s boyfriend managed to become an Oregon resident to save money. Having lived in California 11 years now, I’m not at all surprised their residency requirements are all screwed up.