No student loan forgiveness

[Mrs Tiggywinkle Again]

I went to CC.  My parents, who were college educated but incredibly clueless about how much it had changed between 1970s and 1999-2000 when I started, were convinced it was a much cheaper way to go to college.
It turned out that despite an agreement between the CC and LAC I went to that the LAC would accept all the credits, most of the credits transferred as electives and I still had to spend an extra year to earn all my major credits.  And the education at the CC was frankly terrible compared to the LAC, and as they didn’t have a lot of transfer students everyone already had their friend cliques and I struggled to make friends coming in as a junior.  (And most kids came from wealthier families and didn’t go home to waitress on weekends)

It also turned out that a lot of colleges offer their biggest scholarships to freshmen and I probably would have been better off getting one of those, which I would have qualified for; the transfer scholarships were much fewer and smaller.

I think every situation can be so specific to the individual that there’s very little good blanket advice when it comes to college.

Edited July 2, 2023 by Mrs Tiggywinkle Again

[Serenade]

1 hour ago, catz said:

 

 and still says some of his favorite profs/classes were the dual enrolled ones he took at a CC. 

My son says the same.  In general, he felt that the classes he took at CC had better profs than at the university he is attending.

[Kassia]

1 hour ago, catz said:

 

My kid graduate from a top 15 public UNiversity and still says some of his favorite profs/classes were the dual enrolled ones he took at a CC. 

 

6 minutes ago, Serenade said:

My son says the same.  In general, he felt that the classes he took at CC had better profs than at the university he is attending.

My kids had the same experience - especially my dd.  

[YaelAldrich]

4 hours ago, KSera said:

I agree with making heavy use of Rate my Professor, but I’ve also found that some really poor professors sometimes have really high ratings just for being easy As. That’s all a lot of students are looking for, and they will rate an English teacher highly if they hardly had to read or write anything to get an A. 

But you have to read the ratings and the difficulty level in addition to all the other stuff to get a fleshed out idea of the prof.

[BakersDozen]

On 7/1/2023 at 8:25 AM, BusyMom5 said:

My kids have taken other Gen Ed's at CC for less than $500 per class.  This amount is much more palatable for me, especially if kid is exploring options.  Do we really want to spend $40k trying out different courses the first year or two?  Is this what should be normal?  Or required? 

I would hope that CC would be far more normal than 4-year university/college. I don't know about other areas, but in mine CC is far more chosen than 4-year. I figure if students want to bypass CC (if it's available to them) and go to 4-year, then they need to figure out how to pay for that choice as well as repay loans taken out if that's also their choice.

[maize]

17 hours ago, Heartstrings said:

We looked at my kids starting at our local community college.  We met with the transfer specialist and were pretty much encouraged to just start at the local 4 year because transferring is tricky and a lot of classes wouldn’t count.  That was …discouraging.  

Some state systems do a good job of streamlining and guaranteeing credit transfer within the system. That really needs to be a priority in every state.

[Heartstrings]

20 minutes ago, maize said:

Some state systems do a good job of streamlining and guaranteeing credit transfer within the system. That really needs to be a priority in every state.

I agree, but unfortunately I Iive in one of the handful of states that really resents anything public, including education. Making public things function nicely is really not something we do here.  

Edited July 3, 2023 by Heartstrings

[Carrie12345]

3 hours ago, BakersDozen said:

I would hope that CC would be far more normal than 4-year university/college. I don't know about other areas, but in mine CC is far more chosen than 4-year. I figure if students want to bypass CC (if it's available to them) and go to 4-year, then they need to figure out how to pay for that choice as well as repay loans taken out if that's also their choice.

For me, CC is running about 10k/yr with books. (Not counting extra courses I’ve been taking.) The state university near me is about $12,500/yr before books. It IS a savings, but not enormously. And there’s potential for transfer scholarships of a few grand based on GPA.

A farther state college is nearly $20k/yr tuition. That would be a greater savings. But so would be choosing the first state school over the second.

Tuition and fees at the private college I first attended are about $23k now.

There are many differences in costs beyond 2 vs. 4-yr and public vs. private. (And I don’t think it should be this drastic, but here we are.)

[Ting Tang]

On 7/2/2023 at 2:33 PM, Mrs Tiggywinkle Again said:

I went to CC.  My parents, who were college educated but incredibly clueless about how much it had changed between 1970s and 1999-2000 when I started, were convinced it was a much cheaper way to go to college.
It turned out that despite an agreement between the CC and LAC I went to that the LAC would accept all the credits, most of the credits transferred as electives and I still had to spend an extra year to earn all my major credits.  And the education at the CC was frankly terrible compared to the LAC, and as they didn’t have a lot of transfer students everyone already had their friend cliques and I struggled to make friends coming in as a junior.  (And most kids came from wealthier families and didn’t go home to waitress on weekends)

It also turned out that a lot of colleges offer their biggest scholarships to freshmen and I probably would have been better off getting one of those, which I would have qualified for; the transfer scholarships were much fewer and smaller.

I think every situation can be so specific to the individual that there’s very little good blanket advice when it comes to college.

I've read it can require a lot of planning, and it may depend on the area.  Our state has classes marked that were transferable.  I'm sorry you had that experience.  😞  I honestly do not know what we are going to do about four kids!