From my experience at that time, it didn't feel significantly different than the campus I transferred to, except that the math classes at the Junior College were actually significantly harder, or at least more intense.
Spending some years at community college before transferring to a larger university's degree program is a great way for poorer students to save tuition money, and for academically unprepared students to catch up to their age cohort in a reasonable way. The disadvantage lies in the social networking, which is a big part of the value of (4 years of) on-campus university education. At a community college, it is somewhat less advantageous to make contacts with other students and professors, because they are less prestigious overall. Someone with an associate's degree is not as likely to help you get a job (at least for several years after graduation).
Most for-profit schools lack several of the elements I consider to be absolutely essential to qualify as a "community college". Many of them appear to be so horribly parasitic and exploitative that I can't figure out how they manage to get so many students.
However, the State of Ohio overhauled how it helps funds state universities, where funds are allocated based on graduation rather than enrollment. As a result, state universities have started shifting more and more students to take low level courses at whatever community college, or colleges, they partner with. In particular, students with higher drop-out risk also get sent over to the community college.
I think that, along with many of the State's public universities slashing tuition on entry-level courses have helped improve the cost burden of higher education, particularly for those high-risk groups where they only take a few classes and fail to complete the program.
nothing, but they don't have slick advertising and promise you a $75k/year job, or aggressively recruit you by calling you non-stop and using manipulative pressure tactics like you're buying a $50,000 cell phone plan at a mall kiosk.
Wow, you just reminded me of something funny that happened about 15 years ago.
A younger friend of mine was interested in tech, and knew I was "good with computers". They had taken some online quiz, and said I should take it. So I took it, and filled out my info thinking I might win something (I was young, and didn't particularly care.) About 15 minutes later I got a phone call from a guy trying to tell me that I was in a dead end job, and that I would never be anything if I didn't go to the school he was pushing. I think I just laughed, and said something snarky like "at least I'm not calling people up selling things." Then about an hour later he called back from another number, and was making fun of my (admittedly awful) band, asking where he could buy tickets. I calmly just told him we would appreciate the support, and gave him our website. He just hung up in a huff, but it was a very weird exchange.
In any case, I am very surprised anybody ever buys anything from pushy salespeople. I always immediately equate it to a low quality product, or a business with questionable morals.
Agreed. The irony is the majority of people do. Sadly, most people are irrational > 50% of the time. Sure. They are capable of being rational, but they don't exercise that capability.
I have never even liked the concept of a salesperson, as distinct from a vendor's point-of-sale clerk. I don't like to haggle; I check competitor prices, and use advertised sales or coupons.
They exist because people who give in to avoid conflict exist, so pushy and rude both, in certain contexts and with certain target audiences, work in sales.
Strangely they don't advertise at all - at least in the media I see. While I saw IIT ads all the time. And they target the same demographic.
Once the economy picks up people have jobs so they stop going, those who want to go to school feel good about their odds of taking on a ton of debt and go to a larger school.
(source: father was a professor at a vey large community college for ~40 years, mother is a prof at a university)
N=1 here, but I got no apparent utility from the existence of counselors in high school or college.
In retrospect they handled some registering paperwork for me, but they also planned my coursework for me as if I were the median student. In high school I had to press the counselor to let me take more AP courses than she thought was wise.
In college, it was more of a rubber stamp thing, where the counselor just approved my choices because they lined up with degree requirements.
Other than officially validating that my classes met the degree requirements, there was no value add. I'm glad to see someone at the helm realized a computer can do that just as well or better.
I had the same experience in college though. Heck, I'm an MSE student now and I don't even have an advisor because the one they assigned me left and I haven't been bothered to get a new one.
Her only focus, as far as I can tell, was to make sure we could be admitted to a UC. She spoke to us in 10th grade, letting us know that we needed to take three SAT II subject tests, and that two of them should be writing and math, while the third should be whatever we thought we'd get a high score in. She also stated that on no account should we schedule all three tests for the same day, because too much testing wears you out and your performance suffers.
I could tell that last bit was nonsense, but I believed the earlier advice and took the math, writing, and latin tests. The counselor bore a grudge against me from then on for ignoring her advice but still getting high scores. Come senior year, I learned that good schools usually required a science SAT II. Whoops.
I had almost no interaction with the school counselor besides the speech she gave to the 10th grade. I heard through the grapevine how upset she was that I'd flouted her non-individualized advice.
I had no "counselor" or similar role in college. The CS degree required a CS professor to sign off on my "plan", but that entire process consisted of me going to a professor in my final year, saying "I want to declare a CS major; here is my plan, all of the classes except that one are already complete", and getting a pro forma signature.
That and then there is a general "anti-university" sort of vibe in the world. "They waste a lot of time and money teaching you stuff that you don't need" or "it's just a piece of paper" where as maybe a vocational school might be a more "efficient" option for getting a job. I'm not expert but I believe a lot of community colleges try to offer college prep courses and try to help ease the transition, rather than just focus on vocational skills that can immediately be applied to a job.