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.