Community colleges offer value to people like myself, who for whatever reason did not succeed in high school and would have no other access to higher education (and perhaps couldn't afford it even if they did). In my case, a few semesters of good grades allowed me to transfer to a state university that I was previously rejected from, and with a scholarship that allowed me to be able to afford it in the first place. I was then able to leverage the benefits of the networking you refer to, and was able to drop out and become a well paid programmer rather than a perpetually broke student who wasn't even learning much because I had to work full time to be able to attend in the first place.
>You can think of a college degree similar to a “certified organic” label on food. It doesn’t really mean anything
Not sure where you're from, but in the US this is not true at all. There are strict requirements for something to be certified organic. As of 10 years ago when I last worked on a farm, it was actually quite difficult to get certified.
That’s a valid point. If you can use the community college to transfer to a school with a brand name, it can help a wider variety of people be able to get to that brand name school.
My comment is only in reference to fully completing your degree and getting a diploma that goes on your resume from a community college. You’re better off skipping college and going straight to work in that scenario.
Where my family is from in the Midwest, this is very common. People who get paid more and rise to management jobs in the local blue collar workforce are the ones who just start in the stockroom or doing admin work right out of high school (or otherwise make careers in factory work, trades like welding or go to the military).
They make more money and have higher ranks than people with community college degrees working the same jobs because they have so much lead time in years of experience, while the positions rarely if ever need or care about college degrees.
Meanwhile, other than specific trades which are basically only nursing and elder care, community college grads cannot compete with state school grads for positions that do require degrees, like work in local government, upper positions in law enforcement, teaching at local schools, etc. Community college will never get you those jobs.
I’ve seen a lot of people banking on community college degrees opening doors for them thinking it’s the same as a state school degree but lets you save money & live at home. They end up still with small amounts of debt and absolutely nothing to show for it job-wise.
Really the only exception is if you transfer to a brand name school and you can ensure the degree you’ll have carries brand name signalling.
>You can think of a college degree similar to a “certified organic” label on food. It doesn’t really mean anything
Not sure where you're from, but in the US this is not true at all. There are strict requirements for something to be certified organic. As of 10 years ago when I last worked on a farm, it was actually quite difficult to get certified.