This! I’ll be 36 when I finish.
I’m 35 now and I will be 37 when I finish.
Not quite true. I was looking into taking an actuarial degree. That would be a 5 year commitment, and then another 3-5 years of professional training, IF I could get a company to take me on. I’m 46, and while I could stand the first part, the second part looks very dicey and I’d be ~55 before I actually qualified. That is too late. Bluntly, companies are ageist. They’re not allowed to be, but they get around it by saying that they look for potential. And a candidate in his 50s has much less potential than one 25+ years younger.
Don’t worry about it. No one will care that you’re 25 when you’re done.
Heck, I know a half dozen people who started a degree program in their 30’s, and one in her 40’s. They all have their degrees now and are working in their chosen fields.
Or you can take a break and save some additional money. Or take a class or two for your own enrichment, as someone else mentioned. That gives you four options.
In reality, those are all valid choices. All of them have benefits. Which sounds more appealing to you?
My goodness - graduating without debt is as much an accomplishment as getting a degree.
One additional upside to all this - life throws you curve balls all the time. Getting used to adjusting your plans is a valuable life skill you can’t learn in the classroom. So things aren’t happening exactly as planned - that’s life as normal. Make the most of it.
I did a lot of time at a Community College so here goes:
>It really depends on the college. I had a lot of retired professors from the local university and most of my teachers seemed to really, really love what they were doing. Some CCs seem to be much more trade-skill oriented, so YMMV.
>The quality of my education was on par, if not better than what I got after transferring to a 4 year. However, the intensity was no where near the same. If you’re transferring, you were just jogging at the CC, be prepared to sprint at the 4 year.
>When you get your 4 year diploma, it just says you earned a Bachelors, with no mention of anything else. There is no footnote saying you only did 2 years. As far as a resume is concerned, you now how 2 degrees to list instead of 1.
>I was in my late 20s when I finished my BA. My resume does not give a graduation date, and no one has ever asked.
>There is a different kind of diversity at a CC. You will have bored housewives, unemployed factory workers, people just out of the military, senior citizens trying something new, kids who aren’t sure what they want or couldn’t get into the local university. Actually, that’s the one thing I felt the show Community got right. The 4 year will have mostly late teens, early 20s. many from affluent backgrounds (depending on the school), a whole lot of liberals that are just spreading their wings after leaving home for the first time (which can actually be incredibly annoying at times).
Along with the kids figuring their lives out, I went to CC with people on parole, bikers, and whole lot of auto workers (and it was a blast…we did adult drinking after class).
>An anecdote. One of the previously mentioned bikers was a guy who was in a wheelchair due to an accident a few years earlier . His girlfriend left him and left behind their baby daughter. The guy was trying to get a business degree, but he didn’t have a large support group and was forced to bring his daughter to class. One of my best memories is a science teacher giving his lecture while carrying this guys baby around the class to keep it entertained. There were a lot more moments like this at the CC than at the 4 year.
Beware!
I was a high school drop-out who thought going to community college for a year or two would shore up my track record enough to let me get into a basic state school.
Boy was I wrong.
I ended up transferring to some obscure school. To give you an idea, it was a member of a tiny eight-member sports league.
But then once I graduated from an Ivy League school (Columbia), I was able to eek into Georgetown’s law program and live happily ever after.
I 
Naugatuck Valley Community Community College
I got my BS and BA at 36, looking to go into grad school this year at the grand old age of 39. Have had job offers (including some which figuratively fell into my lap) based on that, age was never an issue. So, to echo everyone else, age isn’t an issue.
As for utility of a CC, one of the things I saw a lot at my universities were people enrolled in multiple universities simultaneously. Attend class at IU or Purdue (and I’m assuming getting degrees from there), while moonlighting at CCs or cheaper universities to knock out the minor classes. When I taught symbolic logic at IUPUI, I had a number of students from Butler, Ball State, U. of Indianapolis, and IvyTech each semester who were moonlighting at my own campus (and for UoI students at least, the credit hour cost at IUPUI was a huge discount).
There was no either/or type of thing, going only to a CC for a couple of years, then transferring to a “real” school. These were full-on IU/Purdue students from the start, picking up transferable classes to save cash. Physics I and Calc II at IUPUI, then down to an IvyTech building for Western History I and Ethics. If I’d known about this, I’d have taken advantage of it; my BS was in mathematics, and the first six math courses I took at Purdue didn’t count toward my major… taking those same classes at IvyTech would have saved me a few thousand dollars. I’ve two friends now in the IU nursing program who have yet to take a class from IU; they’re in the system, but for the last year, they’re hitting all their requirements at IvyTech, paying less money, and will hit the ground running when they go to an IU campus. Well, hopefully, if I can drag one through her finite math course.
Couple of years ago, there was a (short-lived, IIRC) Doper who maintained that taking a single course at a community college indelibly tainted one’s entire academic career, such that no matter how much the person accomplished academically, his greatest achievements, up to and including a Nobel Prize, would be worth less for having been earned by a person who once attended a CC.
She was quite goofily entertaining. I wish I could recall her name.
Do I understand this correctly that you only applied to transfer to one four-year college?
I think that is a mistake. I know that some people want to stay in a particular area and so their choices are very limited, but I think this lends into the greatest risk of community colleges: getting stuck.
Most people get stuck in community college because they have zero clue or ambition. But there are others who can get stuck because they are basically going “all-in” on one college for transfer, and glitches like what you describe can really have a significant impact. (For example, what happens if the school is “too impacted” next year?) And then there’s the random life events, like you have to switch jobs and it turns out to be an education vs. paycheck sort of thing.
To be clear, I am not bashing community college. I got two (or was it three?) AAs in two years from a great CC, transferred to a quite good liberal arts college, and went to a great graduate program. I still regard my community college years as a really, really good use of time.
But finishing up one’s bachelor degree is a big deal, and if it means uprooting yourself for two, two and a half years to get that done, I think that’s a very good thing to do as compared to putting all your bets on one college.
My advice, which is worth every penny that you’re paying for it, is to cast your net wider for colleges to transfer to, and see if there are ones you may be interested in that accept mid-year transfers.
Having taught English composition at both 4-year university and at community colleges, I can assure you that they’re equally rigorous–depending, of course, on the instructor, course requirements, textbooks, etc.
I have found no discernible difference between the uni and cc students in terms of motivation, preparation, attitude, language barriers, and so on.
I enrolled in a CC…for 90 minutes. In the summer between graduating from HS and starting my freshman year at Cal, I tried to get into an English class that would count towards Cal’s English requirement for my major, but when I arrived on the first day and discovered that I was about 20th on the “overflow list”, I bailed after the first class.
Quite a few people I went to high school with took CC classes while they were still in high school to get transferable college credits. It didn’t hurt that you could take five courses a day at my HS and be able to get to the college in time for a 1:00 class.
Don’t do what I did. Repeat classes again and again because you don’t get the idea that you really don’t have the aptitude for your chosen pre-bachelors program, then leave 5 credits short of being able to walk out with an associates degree.
lotsa of good and bad stuff about CC’s
I did some of my pre-reqs at community college, in the summertimes. I was amongst folks who didn’t really care and folks who did. My biggest memory was doing two courses in summer in between my junior and senior year in High school, and they were pretty easy. I was led to think all college courses were that easy! (it was statistics and psychology basic courses). Then I took an accounting class and was bewildered (needed an elective in between semesters at pharmacy school) I was floored at how hard it was but then again, accounting can be hard anywhere.
I knew a girl who went to community college before pharmacy school and she struggled miserably in pharm.school, but then I knew another who went to Laredo Community college and did all her prepharmacy there and then excelled in pharmacy school and now works for FDA.
I and 2 of 3 brothers did 2 years at a CC, and boy, was it a good idea. I bet we have over 100K less in loans because of that, and the last of those degrees was given 10 years ago, before really bad tuition inflation.
How good does your American History class really need to be? I doubt it will come up in your profession. No one even knows I went to CC, because I have the B.A. I would totally do it again.
I agree completely. Too many 4 year college students are spending their time smoking weed, goofing off, etc. They are both what you make of them.
In Quebec all students must start with 2 years at a JuCo. Some few of them get admitted directly to med (and, I think, law) school without a bachelor’s.
I’m very pro-community college. Of course, I’m adjunct faculty at one so my point of view may be biased. 
There is nothing wrong with community college. I went to community college over my summer break after my freshman year at a four year college, in order to pick up some non electives that I had no interest in taking at the university. The classes I took were excellent and interesting, and I enjoyed them immensely.
The one big difference I noticed about CC, as compared to the four year university I attended, was the much more relaxed atmosphere. I enjoyed that.
Another thing to consider is that if you are not ready to leave home and do the four year college, CC is a great way to learn the ropes of college without making a commitment to a four year school. You can earn credits towards the four year school you wish to attend at the same time.
During my community college time, I studied under teachers who were concurrently professors at University of Chicago, University of Illinois at Chicago, DePaul, Loyola and Northwestern. Only I paid nothing for their services, because Pell Grants covered my expenses. I consider that winning.
Also, among Illinois applicants taking the NCLEX (“the boards” for nursing), community college graduates with an AAS have a *higher *pass rate than BSN grads from 4 year universities. Apparently, they’re doing something right.
I had a great experience at cc. I went there and then transferred to a four year university and then on to UVA for grad school. I went back to my cc and told one of my instructors there that his was one of the best classes of my entire academic career.
It’s weird how I’ve basically documented my entire college experience on this board. As an update, the other day was my final day at CC, and I can honestly say that I’m going to miss it quite a bit. Beyond just the practicality of its distance from home (it’s ~25 minutes closer than the four-year I’m transferring to), there are an awful lot of good, quality, caring professors that teach there, and I’m truly grateful for having had that experience.
I finished the AA with a 4.0 perfect GPA, and for doing so my school actually awarded me with a medal and certificate of Academic Excellence. Normally I’m not terribly keen on these things - I got a slew of similar accolades during my HS days - but I have to admit, this most recent one was pretty awesome.