> Unless you get a full ride you probably should start at community college. You can then transfer later and generally you'll have a better variety to choose from.

This does not make sense if you (like most UC students) are in-state. You're right that it's easier to get in as a CC transfer, but you'll miss out on a lot of the bonding experience that happens as freshmen. And if you want, you could always transfer from one UC to another, if you're looking to upgrade your diploma from Irvine to LA, for example. It's probably worth it to have the better network of the freshmen you met at Irvine rather than going to a CC in LA for two years. It would be cheaper, but networks can be incredibly valuable.

Is that bonding experience worth another 12500$ a year ? CC is about 1500$ in tuition for a full 30 units vs 14000$ at a UC per year.

I made life long friends in community college.

Plus college doesn't work out for everyone, better to spend 3000$ figuring that out over 28k.

If you pay your own way and go the absolute cheapest path, your spending 3k at community college for 2 years and about 14k for 2 years at a Cal State. 17k total.

Vs 14k a year at a UC and around 56k for all 4.

This really depends on your financial situation though. For a lot of families this isn't a lot of money.

Yes, it very much depends on family circumstances. In some families/communities, there is somewhat of a stigma to not attending a 4-year college straight out of high school. That will probably fade over time, but it is a reality for some.

I was a transfer to UCSD - the transfer community itself is pretty large and one college (Sixth) houses a significant percentage, with dorms specifically for transfers. IMO there was far higher interesting diversity of folks there compared to rest of campus: veterans, addicts who got their shit together, tons of immigrants who couldn't afford going straight to UC (as well as your standard mostly 20-22 year old SoCal transfers) from which most people I know formed good networks.

Sure, there's a community either way. But how does the CC -> UCSD transfer community stack up against either (1) four years at UCSD (which OP would say not to go to without a full ride) or (2) two years at UCI and two years at UCSC or UCLA?

My guess is that there are hardworking people in both groups, but the ones who start out at a four year institution are more likely to be tip-top, and to have family/friends who would be valuable in a business network years down the road.

This is somewhat less true now that UCs are pushing to admit so many LCFF students, but I think it's still true in general.

This is old anecdata, but as someone who taught at the CalState system in non-entry technical courses (so most outright failures already washed out before me):

1) 4 year students had my best average, but also my widest standard deviation. My best and my worst students were in this group.

2) Community college transfers had a slightly lower average than my 4 years, but the standard deviation was a lot tighter. They were optimizing time and schedule.

3) Returning professionals had an even slightly lower average than CC transfers, but the standard deviation was super tight. They mostly targeted the low end of the B grade range. They were very strongly optimizing every ounce of their time schedule.

I give a lot of credit to the GP… I’m not familiar with the UCSD demographic, but in general I would expect the 4 year applicants to be much more homogeneous. They’re all 18 years old, how much interesting life experience do they have? Some yes, lots no.

Excellent point about CC’s. The downside is that instructor quality varies considerable both within and between CCs, and many students drop out or are not provided with adequate guidance in terms of GE requirements and transferability.

In terms of costs of UC other than Berkeley, (Davis, Cal Poly, UCLA, etc…) 16k in current times is a great bargain especially given the pipeline to grad school which is great even at non-Berkeley UCs.

I can only speak for my own experiences, but I found my instructors at community college to be absolutely fantastic and even better than the ones I had when I eventually transferred to a UC. I had transferred to a UC first, ran out of money and then I wrapped up at a cheaper CSU years later.

At a UC you're probably going to be interacting with teaching assistants anyway.

I have to completely disagree with your last paragraph. No one should be thinking grad school right after a B.A. Go and see the world for a little bit. Excluding maybe law and medicine.

Even then, I've seen this horribly backfire in families. The kid is expected to do really well in college and then become a doctor, the pressure is too much and they just spaz out.

Next thing you know your a college dropout couchsurfing because your parents are threatening to send you back to the old country for an arranged marriage.

> many students drop out

I'm pretty sure that's the case at UC too. I don't know UC, but at my 4 year engineering school it felt like 25% attrition every year; if you only do a year and drop out, better to not be paying enormous student loans for probably the rest of your life for that.

If you do two or three years and drop out, better to have a degree, even if it's just an Associates.

If you know you'll make it all the way to a Bachelors, yeah, maybe it'd be better to go direct. But even then, you might get smaller class sizes (and better experiences) at a CC because of the relative levels of the student bodies. Lots of people taking calculus based physics of mechanics at a UC and not so many at a CC, so the UC might do lectures in a hall but the CC might have it in a classroom.

Community College has no real acceptance criteria. .I think you might need to take a placement test, but even if you place low you can still enroll in most classes.

For me I literally didn't have much else going on, so why not.

Very VERY easy way to date girls from all over the world. Nothing like studying with a Japanese girl on your 20th birthday.

The thing with life is you can never *know* about tomorrow. You can do well in college, parents don't have a spare 15k for next year and have to drop out.

A lot of kids in CC are also working full time. If you have to drop out, it's fine, can always go back.

By the time I finished at a Cal State I was working a full time software engineering job.

I have issues with the current system in general. You should have to work at less one job for a few months before taking out any type of loan. You need to understand how difficult money is to earn.

> The UC system is sorta weird though. Maybe the top 2 , UCLA and Berkeley compete nationally. After that you're paying UC tuition for an average school.

Does UCSB no longer have an excellent physics department and is UCSD no longer considered a top CS department?

Assuming this isn't a rhetorical question: San Diego, Davis, Irvine, and Santa Barbara all rank in the top 15 US public, top 50 US / top 200 global universities (USN&WR, THE, QS rankings) and have specific programs that are world class ( including the ones you mention--two UCSB professors won last year's Nobel in physics.

Though Berkeley and UCLA have the advantage of most all departments being top 10, "average school" is not a fair assessment for the rest.