The answer, and no one likes this, is what people say they want and what they actually want as voted by where they enroll are often two different things.
The simplest answer is the most likely: the strong economy, including among relatively low wage, low skill workers.
That is, the talking heads might not be wrong about what they think community colleges are getting right.
Undergraduate enrollment at a 4-year school technically runs cyclically to the economy, but in practical terms enrollment remains flat at most schools.
This comes at an enormous time and money cost to the student.
A good alternative would be to test proficiency for that class. But that’s additional work a University has little desire to do, beyond allowing for testing out of precalculus.
I do believe there is airy and non-specific marketing material about "take your calculus class at CC and transfer to some schools" in a non-specific manner that is, as you claim, sort of fictional. Or "many of our classes transfer to state-U" which in a legal sense is technically true.
Also my CC fed the state U system and three private colleges, not solely state U.
There's no "paradox" here. There's just a huge gap between two groups whose members have likely never had a conversation with someone from the other group: talking head commentators and people without even an associate's degree. The commentators are saying that people who haven't gone to college should want community college, because they believe traditional universities aren't worth it. The people who haven't gone to college don't want community college and keep taking on loans to bankroll traditional colleges. It turns out higher education is a business and consumers love frills no matter what the sector is, but especially if they don't have to think about paying it back.
Any CC student whom is motivated by employment is flushing their money down the toilet if they're on a track or a program.
I was in a transfer program along with several other kids and that program worked very well, but "most" people paying for CC are wasting their money.
The non-credit courses are, however, a good deal and an excellent way to learn and skill up. Note that paying 100x as much to make those courses "credit" courses is worthless if the degree or cert granted is considered worthless in the workplace. And the institution cannot stay in business if everyone takes non-credit courses instead of being on a very expensive "associates degree" or "certificate" path.
The other way to use Community Colleges is to focus on something that has a very specific certification or outcome just by finishing the certificate or degree program.
An associates degree from a community college by itself has minimal value.
This is a universal truth about everything though. What people say and what they do are not guaranteed to be same.
Most cc teachers were not tenured - they were often experienced industry professionals who taught as a hobby. And the ones that were prized and retained were the ones who had exceptional teaching/lecture ability.
At a university so many professors are basically just the middle-management of academia - hired because of their research or experience managing grad students.
At a normal university, you end up taking classes from "professional" professors with no actual industry experience who are unlikely to be native English speakers. These professors copy & paste their notes, assignments and exams, cheating their way through teaching, hardly able to go off script or explain a concept beyond their intended lecture area. I've literally taken several classes (at the graduate level even) where the entire curriculum, lecture notes, assignments, exams were copy-pasted from other teachers or schools.
Of course, I believe there are some highly reputable universities and reputable professors. But the vast majority of PhD professors teaching at middle to low tier schools are hardly really teaching.
I'll take a class from an adjunct who is passionate about teaching even if they are somewhat just winging it. At least their heart and experience are in the right place.
If community colleges could attract the best teachers (etc.), and provide the kind of education as stated, then perhaps they would be what people want.
The problem is the incentives of workers, academics, students, the state, etc. are not aligned.
Most students probably do want the best practical education to get them into the workforce effectively -- but those who can provide that education have no incentive to.
The best industry professionals are in industry, the best academics are researchers.
The local CC paid TAs the same at 2 year CC as at 4 year state U. Odd that they charge differential tuition to students while paying the TA the same. I had a programming grad student TA and a History grad student TA who both commuted to also teach at the 4-year down the road 30 miles.
There simply is none, and what's considered fraud in any other industry is just business as usual.
The biggest drivers of reputation of have little to nothing to do with the quality of instruction. Below are probably the largest drivers of reputation in ranked order:
1. Athletics
2. Research
3. Notable alumni
4. Notable campus beauty / landscaping / facilities
5. Appearances in popular culture (movies, tv, etc.)
6. Outstanding instruction in a particular discipline for decades