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Comment by TheMerovingian | Hacker News Reader

I have a community college diploma and a university degree. I can say that the 3 years I spend in community college learning to code; learning systems, design patterns, various languages, etc... it has served me far better than the knowledge I earned at university.

Community college is a second class citizen and it's hard to convince people of its merits to society.

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I'm strongly of the opinion that reforms to higher education should start with strengthening the community college and public tech school systems, and push their best practices upward. The CC in my region, and the regional state colleges, are jewels. Everybody at the CC is committed to teaching. They are committed to getting people in and keeping them in, not just to meet some metric, but actually working with each student one on one. And the teachers at our CC are unionized, so there's actually a fair amount of competition for the jobs that open up.

The national news media should declare a two year moratorium on reporting about the "elite" colleges, and spend that time investigating the community and regional college systems.

Just finished my last semester at a CC and I'm transferring to a UC this Fall. I think that CCs will never really be able to shake off their stigma because of the fact that they are an entry point for EVERYONE. Telling someone you go to a CC could mean anything from "I'm a lazy fuck up" to "I'm a bright student who wants to avoid student loans". I feel like a lot of CC students just grit their teeth and accept that they may be looked down upon until they transfer and "prove themselves" so to speak. There's really no getting around this without changing the very nature of CCs' inclusiveness.

> I feel like a lot of CC students just grit their teeth and accept that they may be looked down upon until they transfer and "prove themselves" so to speak.

It's hard to do anything about it, as you pointed out, since the best are those who transfer out.

It's also the most affordable way to start a 4 year degree program. Many US states have guaranteed community college transfer programs into large, well-regarded state universities for engineering, business, etc.

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