The only downside of Community College is that it is not the same "college experience" that you get with University, which I can understand is huge for many. I did to an extent make up for it my junior and senior year after I transferred, but it's not the same.
It was my four year college, I thought it was a joke, and upper division class worse. I once had a accounting teacher sit at the front of the room, and read the text book word for word. He did tell us class participation was not expected.
That said, going to a community college can be depressing.
Something like 90% do not finish their General Education courses, and don't transfer to a four year. They just drop out.
Most countries' universities seem to work like the community college: it's near your high school, you go there and just study, the dorms for people from other cities are just cheap flat in the surrounding area, and you try to make your campus as small and focused on study as possible.
At least that's how it was in France, and my memories or universities are full of technical discoveries, amazing teachers and passionate friends. Not lifestyle changes, but intellectual ones.
The drinking games and parties, they stated at 16 and felt not very different at uni, just normal part of youth.
And so there is an explosion of exploration, and only some of it is intellectual.
No regrets at all and am grateful for the opportunity to rebound from a lousy HS freshmen year and still do well for myself.
There is quite a bit of stuff that one can learn in a class that might not show up on a test. A few examples:
1. Certain small subject matter specifics that may not be measured on a relatively short timed test.
2. Discovering peer groups to study with.
3. The test structure at the university/department — some smart people get bombed early in their academic careers just because they aren’t familiar with the test type.
A well-structured series of courses can be built out assuming that each student in later courses has at least been exposed to certain ideas in earlier courses. If you test out, there is no guarantee that these learners have been exposed to those ideas. Yes, a better test could reveal all of this stuff, but making good tests or test banks is difficult and time consuming, and that assumes that there is some expertise in evaluation/testing in the department faculty (which is rare).
You're describing the quality of an education, while the previous commenters are describing how to game a title system to get the best brand. These are two different goals/outcomes.
In my case, the teacher "forgot" to give me the final for one of them, and only gave me the mid-term. Months later, they "discovered" that and made me take it then to keep my credit.
I said, "Give me the test right now." I took it, passed with flying colors.
They still didn't look happy. I'm still half-convinced they were trying to trip me up. Their classes were the easiest I have ever taken and I got a 4.0 GPA there. I knew I was just going for the paper, though, so it didn't bother me.
Joke's on me. That paper has never actually helped me get a job. sigh
Knowing that, in an interview, I won't be asked why I don't have a degree, has been at least 90% of the value of mine.
I don't even have "Education" paragraph in my resume, just skills and experience.
>A 2015 survey found that 62 percent of adjuncts earned less than $20,000 a year.
https://economichardship.org/2019/03/a-bigger-scandal-at-col...
- obtaining research grants
- department administration
- image management
They also sometimes teach courses, but more often than not, that duty can be given to a combination of adjunct professors and “graduate teaching assistants,” ie doctoral students.
Much of it I’m okay with organizationally except for the money/workload balance. It’s a race to the bottom to overwork and underpay for teaching duties.
So for at least the first year of university i spent almost nothing on tuition. Which was nice for someone who was really struggling back then.