Hell yes. To anyone who's going to college this year, I always recommend that they at least consider community college. As a HS senior in 2008, I got into small and not very known liberal arts colleges, thinking about the college search about finding the college that best "fit" me--that romantic notion. I had a 3.3 (failed AP English junior year, etc....) and got rejected from 5/7 colleges. In addition, I did not have any idea what I wanted to do with life and financial issues did not matter to me.
I negligently enrolled in a (top) CC (it was pretty, and far away) and ended up, as of currently, having a 3.7 GPA w/awesome EC's and work experience, as I've been working thru these last two years. I actually have an idea what I wanna do in life, cut my potential college debt in half, matured A LOT, and met some awesome people of truly diverse backgrounds. If I went to that 4-year liberal arts college, I would have potentially had 40k of debt on my hands after my UG graduation. Not to mention that with these credentials, I got into the top public school in the world, a BIG jump from that small lib-art college.
. Also, in contrast, I will probably have AT MOST 20k of debt upon graduation in 2012.
In other words, I'm glad I didn't trade in my 4-year experience for Berkeley ♥
Definitely worth it. Brother might do it too.