I think your comment misses my original intent. If people might value education for its own sake (which is what I was replying to), then I have found Community Colleges to be the perfect place for this.

But to address your point:

> The problem with community colleges is that you completely miss out on any meaningful networking. As long as all the best students see it as beneath them, you'll have a hard time meeting people in a community college who can actually help your career

Since the instructor I had was a well known local musician, he actually called me up a few times for a gig, and I have done quite a bit of networking that way. I think you would be surprised just what type of networking oppritunities are actually are at a decent community college.

Like I said in my comment:

> I have actually known quite a few professors who are in actual industry and teach a class or two.

One of the best entry-level folks I have ever met we found this way. He is an incredibly hard and smart worker, but did not have the money to go to a four year university. So he went to community college, and a colleague of mine who taught there offered him a job as he was a student. Now he has a four year degree (he was able to pay his way through college with that job) and is one of the best contrbutors to that group.

I suspect community colleges are a fantastic way to recruit people who one would not find otherwise. People taking classes at night and holding down a full time job, and doing well, just out of interest- that's someone who has potential.

Yea I missed the point. Everyone I’ve ever met who went to a community college did it specifically to learn job skills since those are what all the programs were for. I didn’t know they taught things just for the sake of knowledge or personal interest.

There's a massive number of people who as adults or even seniors take classes on a non-degree path at a CC-- whether it's a language, an arts class, or whatever.

If you insist on a pyramidical social structure, 99% of the population will never meet or network with the top people in their field anyway, and as such a school that prevents them from doing what's impossible anyway yet saves money is wise, especially if the alternative is spending ten times as much on a pale imitation of what the people at the top would get but they'll never associate with them anyway.

Classic microeconomics vs macroeconomics problem. Individuals can always improve but you can't extend "just pull yourself up by your bootstraps harder" to an entire civilization. An individual benefits personally by going to Yale, if they can. You can't fix a national education system by making the official strategy telling kids their only hope is getting into Yale. Especially if there's an alternative that actually works for the masses, like CC.

Another problem is wildly varied quality. I’ve seen course material from some community colleges that made me think “wow, this seems to be a high quality resource” in all sorts of interesting subjects, but most community colleges in places I’ve lived near or been too have limited programs and often low quality ones at that.