Community College: Pros & Cons

welcome back to the grown up millennial if you went to a high school like mine Community College was rarely if ever discussed or you might have gone to a high school where Community College was the only college option discussed either way you want to know the pros and cons of attending a community college so that's what this video is about we're gonna have a real discussion if you've seen my previous videos you know that I attended a community college I'm even reppin my Community College t-shirt for this video so it's gonna be a little bit biased I personally support community colleges but they are not for everybody just like going to straight to a four-year college or college at all is not for everybody so I'm gonna try really hard to have a really honest discussion about the pros and cons about attending a community college so let's get started the obvious affordability when we talk about community college it's often to talk about how much cheaper Community College is than attending a four-year we're constantly hearing about how much debt college graduates are going into last statistics I heard was between 27 and 35 thousand dollars on average by graduation for some people that's an insane amount to take on for other people it's simply impossible they cannot pay for a four-year college straight out of the gate so Community College is a great option normally it's a lot cheaper one hundred couple hundred dollars of course and oftentimes Community College students can still receive financial aid in the form of Pell grants and work-study and of course student loans so that's the really obvious reason to go to Community College you can avoid debt you can maybe even pay out of pocket it's cheaper and they're still financial aid available but there are other not so obvious reasons to attend a community college the not-so-obvious Opportunity Community College means different things for different people for some people like myself it means completing two years and then transferring to a four-year university for others it's where it ends they get their associates and then they move on for other still it's a job training program maybe a class or two that they're taking to try things out or they're trying to learn English or another language whatever it is there are thousands of reasons people are going to Community College but it all boils down to opportunity oftentimes we think of it as a last resort but for many people it's a first resort and it's a place of opportunity and don't ever forget that whether you choose to go to Community College or not in that vein the fact that so many people are at Community College's for so many different reasons it goes on to our next reason to go to Community College diversity when we think of diversity we often think of ethnic and racial diversity which is important and a big reason to go to Community College roughly half of students of color attend a community college but I'm not talking about just racial and ethnic diversity I'm also talking about diversity of experience oftentimes when you go to four-year straight out of high school you have similar experiences you went to high school you did pretty well you applied you got into your four-year that doesn't describe everybody of course but it's gonna be a much more common theme when I think of diversity at Community College what I'm really thinking about is the diversity of experience for example I attend a community college with people who had served in the military and were there for their GI Bill I attend a community college with single moms and dads teen mothers who wanted to create better lives for their children I attended Community College of people who'd been in prison and we're trying to start a different track I attended Community College with rich kids who have been cut off poor kids who never thought they would go to college and middle class kids who had just been edged out with financial aid and needed to pay for things on their own so they were doing stuff on the budget I also attended Community College with people who were straight out of high school like myself and with 60 70 80 year olds people who had retired already and just wanted to go back and do something I attended school with people who had been working for 20 25 years in the same career and then they lost their job and they were going back to college to get a different education so they could get a different job so that was a big thing for me a community college that I really didn't expect when I attended another reason to attend Community College small classes and passionate teachers many four-year universities have tons of students going but not many professors additionally many universities are doing research so when you're a freshman at a four-year university you can ex to being classes of two 300 students with a professor who only teaches part-time and they do research the rest of the time at four years you're gonna find a lot of really great professors but you're also gonna find a lot of really bad professors professors who aren't interested in teaching they're just there to do research but their contract requires that they teach a couple classes a year community colleges are different they don't do research their professors are there to teach does that mean you're not gonna have bad professors of course not every college is gonna have a couple of bad professors but nearly every professor there loves teaching or else why would they be there additionally most of the classes are going to be really small even for your gen ed class 20 30 maybe 40 students a class so you're much more likely to get individual attention with your professor really meet the students in your class and for many people that's incredibly helpful for others not so much but if you're looking for small class sizes and can't afford a small liberal arts colleges which can often run fifty thousand dollars a year Community College is a really great option and it's a really great way to meet professors in the field you want to work in and finally one of the upsides of attending a community college is that is for the clueless and the elite unfortunately when we think of Community College we often think of it as a place with people who didn't do well in their previous education or high school but that's just simply not the case you're gonna find people who were honors students you're gonna find people who really really struggled in high school and that's what's so great about Community College is that there's a little bit of something for everybody I went as very high powered student from high school I had been accepted to all my the four years that I had applied to but I just couldn't afford them and I was worried Community College wasn't gonna have the high-powered academics that I wanted well as it turned out there was an Honors Program that I was a part of I got to do mission trips to Nicaragua I competed in the mall the United Nations team and went to Harvard to compete I competed with the Speech and Debate team and went to Nationals and got a medal there are plenty of opportunities at Community College for those who consider themselves at top-tier students on the flip side if you're kind of confused or don't really know what you want to do Community College is great for you the because it's so affordable you're gonna find a lot more flexibility to explore the path you want to explore almost everyone changes their major at least once in college a lot of people change their mind because they didn't realize what the class what when they picked a major they don't really necessarily know what that major is like and when they take the classes they realize oh this isn't for me when you're going to a four-year university that costs a ton of money you feel a lot of pressure to stay in your major even if it's something you don't like and something you don't want to do whereas a Community College yeah it'll set you back a year too but it's so much more affordable and you feel much more confident in the decisions when you change your major and can pursue what you want to do Community College is a great option if you know exactly what you want to do or you're a high-powered student or you have no idea and you really aren't sure college is for you either student can find exactly what they need a community college because they're so flexible and they offer the resources that people often really need like I said I'm gonna hunt this is a real discussion so while I talked about the upside now it's time to talk about the downsides and this is probably the biggest one underfunded and underserved according to the College Board forty-two percent of the undergraduate population in 2014 was attending a community college community college is huge in the United States unfortunately the money is not well 42 percent students were in Community College only 33 percent of Pell grants go to community college students state budgets for education are often skewed against community colleges the four years just get more money than the community colleges do because four years are doing research they've got massive sports teams also community colleges just don't pull in nearly as many donations as four-year universities do community colleges are kind of struggling for money and unfortunately that means they're struggling to offer some services and main 4-year universities when you start as a freshman you're gonna get an orientation you'll get an RA you're gonna get all these people who are ready paid to help you through your first year unfortunately community colleges can't offer that and that's a big problem for a lot of students particularly first generations need a little bit more guidance and help and if you still want to attend a community college seek out other students at that Community College to help guide you through the process because unfortunately the school can't offer it themselves and finally stigma but who cares if you watch television you probably heard some disparaging things about Community College my personal favourites are the show community which while hilarious does not show community colleges as like a real place where people go for an academic education or a Big Bang Theory where the guys make fun of penny for attending Community College we hear that community colleges are for dropouts or people who didn't do as well in high school or or for people who just subpar and that's just not true but unfortunately that's the stigma let me give you a quick story I was a tour guide at my four-year college and part of our duties was to talk to prospective students who came and visited us what I was talking to one mother and I told her that I attended a community college first and the first thing she said to me was oh how did you deal with not getting into any schools you applied to so I told her very respectfully I got into all ten schools that I applied to after college I just couldn't afford them so I opted for Community College and now I'm on the way to graduating debt-free on the bright side that stigma is going down partly because nearly half of college students in the u.s. are attending a community college and because the debt is so high people are starting to look at Community College as an option that isn't just for people who couldn't cut it but that's just something you deal with you're gonna hear comments like that from people who just don't understand personally my method was to just look at my bank account and realize that I was graduating debt-free and chuckling myself and move on that doesn't have to be your method but it was mine the fact of the matter is we spent a lot of time obsessing about what college we're gonna go to which one's gonna get us the most money or the most prestige or into the best grad school what have you I used to be one of those students who obsessed about it but as I went through community college I realized an important truth the school does not make the student the student makes the school you can attend Harvard Harvard's great but if you don't take advantage of the services do internships learn something it doesn't matter what that you went to Harvard the student makes the school so more important than the name on your diploma is what you did while you were earning that diploma I hope you found this helpful if you have any more questions about community college or my decision to go please let me know in the comments below additionally I'm gonna plug it again I am on Facebook you can search the grown-up millennial I'm also on twitter at grown-up M'Lynn follow me and I'll be posting little websites and tips that I come across in my internet journey also please hit the subscribe button below if you are interested in more that I have to say and of course like share with your friends whatever it is that you like to do on YouTube thank you so much for watching bye

Channel: The Grown Up Millennial

Views: 55,903

Rating: 4.9405136 out of 5

Keywords: student debt, community college, pros, cons, debt free, classes, cheap school, diversity, high school seniors, college, university

Id: Riuzvo-90O8

Length: 11min 51sec (711 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 25 2016