The problem in the US is that "community college" is seen as a lower grade qualification that people "settled" for, instead of an educational focused institutional with bare bones and no immoral mandatory tie-ins (e.g. first year mandatory high price accommodations/gyms/meal plans, etc).

I understand community colleges have a lot of problems too (e.g. low educator pay and conditions). I'm just pointing out that everyone thinks that a European University is 1:1 with the city-colleges of the US, when in reality they're often nothing that fancy and pretty bare-bones.