If you were to tell the average high school student who's in the top ~10% of their class to go to CC, you'd get laughed at.
Also, we're spoiled in programming and engineering in that we can go to almost any valid school and still get a job if we can build and ship software. In other careers, college or location choice really does matter!
On a better note, where I went to high school most students (even top ones) went to in-state schools, but that's because Texas has pretty good public colleges (though last time I checked they're getting more expensive).
> If you were to tell the average high school student who's in the top ~10% of their class to go to CC, you'd get laughed at.
There shouldn't be any such stigma; it's a great path to follow. If it was the last degree you got, sure, a 2-year degree won't get you the results you want. But as the first 2 years of a B.S. or graduate degree, it's a completely sensible path.
I went to community college for 2 years, graduated with an A.S., transfered into a full university as a junior, and then finished a B.S. and Ph.D. there. I can definitely vouch for that path, and never once has it mattered in the least where those first two years took place.
> Also, we're spoiled in programming and engineering in that we can go to almost any valid school and still get a job if we can build and ship software. In other careers, college or location choice really does matter!
True, careers like law or business seem to have a much larger problem with credentials.
My chemistry, math, and physics teachers excelled in their field and taught night classes because they wanted to. This was much better then the university classes taught by people who just wanted to research or who were too caught up in all the theory to figure out how to explain concepts.
Of course there's always a career path for people with a record of making impressive things, but if you're a CS major in the right schools you can get into the big-name tech companies just for having potential.
14 credit hours:
$4206/semester in-state
$11,159/semester out-of-state
$5381/semester in-state
$12,335/semester out-of-state
$1267/term in-state
$2815/term out-of-state
One other excellent property my community college (https://www.pcc.edu/) had: because they also catered to high-school-completion students, and students transferring in with gaps or inconsistencies in their knowledge, they had a placement exam for math and English as part of the application process. That exam could place you anywhere from "you need a few years of remedial classes" to "you can go directly to second-year classes".
Either way, between working part time through high school I paid for the first year or so. Worked basic service-type jobs back home during summers (retail, restaurant, etc) to pay for the next year's rent and food budget. Worked very part-time during the year (like maybe 6 or 7 hours a week at the computer lab) for bullshit money to spend on stupid stuff like $4-a-head keg party cover charge on the weekends because I wasn't just confined to school and work.
The rest was taken out in loans and after all was said and done, I probably owed around $25-30k in low-interest loans with an insanely low payment rate for the first year or so out of school.
So yeah, I owed the equivalent of a decent new car and when I was still scraping by as a recent grad I had to make <$80/mo payments before moving up to the "full" minimum payment of <$120/mo. That at least allowed me to keep up with payments while getting settled but incurred no penalties when I started paying much more than minimum once I was stable.
I guess my experience was that I financed the equivalent of a new car while gaining that much more each year in salary after a few years due to having that degree. Was it rough right out of school? Definitely. I had roommates for a good few years after graduation and never got to blow thousands on stuff like Spring Break or shopping trips.
Still, I'm glad I didn't end up like so many people I've met who went to schools that cost 2-5x as much, owned a car, went on trips, and didn't start paying for any of it until after graduation.
The strategic way to use college to start a startup would be to independently learn how to slam out CRUD web-apps, go to Stanford for a single semester, meet literally everyone you can in the CS and business departments, then drop out. You could shop around for a cheaper education, but you'd pay a lot of money and spend a lot of time for a less useful product.
As for learning? Your peers won't challenge you, you'll be exposed to easier lessons, to easier concepts, you won't really get challenged at all. When I was keeping up with this stuff, in the UK the shit unis taught Java, the good ones Lisp or Python. The whole ethos is different. A friend of mine got a 1st (best degree in UK) from the 2nd tier University he went to.
But he couldn't remotely handle complicated code written by our literally genius colleague (I've honestly never met someone so insanely good again in 15 years). He was not anywhere near 1st material in a real top-tier university. He would have been lucky to get a 2:2.
I know someone who did the 2nd tier route and who is genuinely good. He, perhaps like you, is the exception, not the rule.
That said I've certainly met and worked with engineers with degrees from prestigious institutions that were lacking in their skill set, particularly when it came to "real" field work.
It's almost as if the west coast isn't as meritocratic as it likes to think, and is really just a mirror image of Wall Street...
I'm from the same state, and I chose the four year traditional route and it worked for me since I had lots of scholarships. If I didn't have as many, I may have started at the Community College instead.
Additionally, your point about 1st tier versus 2nd tier is kind of off when most of the time people go to community college to get their general ed. requirements out of the way and then transfer to the larger Uni for the specialized classes. If you're majoring in C.S. and you want to take Physics I,II, Intro level English, and programming I/II that's going to be nearly the same no matter which Uni you're at.