Most people I know who started at CC either transferred to a prestigious pubic college after two years or a lackluster state college as a junior after one year.
I work at a university. A ton of students from our local community college attend our university after two years or an associates., or other local universities. My university is a fine private university but not prestigious.
Transfer patterns vary a lot by state, but unless your community college has an agreement with a prestigious university, any student is going to have slim odds (whether freshman or transfer).
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Of course it’s normal for kids not to attend a prestigious college after two years.
I don’t know how you define prestige but I assume you would think most aren’t prestigious and most, if not all those non prestigious have plenty of transfers, likely more as a percentage of total population than the prestigious.
Of course some schools like the UCs are set up for transfers - but I’m guessing there’s o ky two UCs you’d consider prestigious.
Whether it’s Middle Tennessee state, UNLV, or UCLA, transfers will be well represented.
Other kids do their two years and they’re done.
Why would you think that most community college students transfer to prestigious colleges. I’m quite sure that most actually do not transfer to top 20 schools or whatever you view as prestigious. Some do. But most don’t.
Most community college students transfer to colleges where there is an articulation agreement between the CC and the four year university…because that makes course transfer and acceptance more likely.
All cc students should discuss transfer options with the transfer advisor at their community college.
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Actually most people attending community college never transfer to any 4 year college. See below quote from the article.
“Of the students enrolled in a community college in California who said they wanted to transfer to a four-year university, an average of 9.9% went on to enroll at a four-year institution in 2021, the most recent data available”
Community college transfer numbers vary widely in California - CalMatters
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Mathematically it can’t be a high percentage.
Community college does not always work out as hoped, of course. But among those people who get what they were hoping for out of community college, I’d suggest most commonly that is a two-year degree that suits their needs, and next most commonly a transfer to a “normal” four-year college with a program that suits their needs. And then some will go to a “prestigious” four-year college, but again just mathematically I assume that is less common.
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That makes a lot of sense. If somebody lives in rural area and is low income, there is no way they can afford tuition and housing with current cost at public 4 year schools. Public schools are not very generous with FA and are not obligated to meet need.
Transferring OOS to private and keep majority of credits is quite problematic (unless there is articulation agreement between public and private or you are outlire with 4.0 GPA and a leader who happened to attend local CC for financial reasons and carefully chose classes with someone very familiar with transferring between particular schools.)
Also many people attend CC just to take couple professional development classes. In some cases there is even as mentioned in the article prison population…
In my area ton of local students transfer from very good suburban CC to our flagship, UMD. In fact, many local students who did not get accepted to UMD use CC to get to UMD instead of choosing another school. In addition, they are saving about 30k that way.
I do not believe that many OOS attend our CC to get transfer to UMD, but it is definitely possible.
In VA I know some local students that get this approach to get from CC to UVA.
I believe that there are theoretically students that get from CC to Yale or Harvard, but there should be exceptional circumstances for that.
Yes, actually at the top of my list of people who got what they wanted out of CC should have been people who went to CC just to take some classes of interest/use.
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Very few people wind up going from CC to highly selective colleges. Most never even get an associates’, some transfer to a yr public, some to the flagship public.
I went to a cc from high school. I couldn’t afford to go away. I worked to put myself through college with government assistance. After one year I transferred to Wayne State University in Detroit. Not exactly University of Michigan. Lol but it has always been and still is a great school for pre med and things like Psychology. It’s even more of a in-demand local school. I got into medical school a year yearly.
Now as an adult with two kids that graduated college I live and have a nice house in the same areas as people that went to the so-called prestigious schools. Everyone are friends.
Lots of my neighbors even went to schools I never really heard of.
Moral here is it kinda doesn’t matter. You make your college experience and being active on campus is what the companies look for for their internships and jobs. At the end of the day can you perform as expected.
Some advice I gave my kids. “Bet on yourself” and “You do you”. Create your own path and don’t worry about everyone else.
You will be fine.
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I did exactly this after I already had a bachelor’s and master’s degrees. I just wanted to take the classes.
I have considered doing the same again, but now as a mostly retired person.
YES! Exactly.
This is the reality of life - the reality is also what most these I must go to a top 20 will experience as well - neighbors with those from unknown schools or lesser prestigious names.
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Random, but my Dad was the first in his family line to go to college, out of a normal public HS in the Detroit area, and went to Wayne State. He then went for a PhD from a fancy university, and had a very successful career with a Big Three Auto research lab.
Even more random, my Mom was followed a similar first-gen path through San Francisco State to the same fancy university for a Masters, where she met my Dad. She did not work while we were young, but eventually got into Early Childhood education and got a Masters in that from Oakland University.
These of course are just among the gazillion examples of what you are talking about. Obviously it does not necessarily hurt if you can start on third base (metaphorically). But you can also work your way around the bases, and in fact most people still do.
Yep. I am the first to go to college all 4 year’s (OK 3 for me… Lol). We were kinda poor but had motivation and perseverance. The rest was up to me and for me personally it wasn’t easy on any level so I sympathize with many of the students and families here just trying to make it. Trust me… If I can do it… Just can’t listen to anyone telling you, you can’t.
I hope the OP is listening to some of this.
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The norm for someone who attends a community college is NOT transferring to any 4-year college.
Top 40-50 universities/LACs see 2 types of transfers: lateral transfers (like Wellesley → Williams, Dartmouth->Brown, Skidmore → Cornell) and non traditional pathways (typically something like, Army-> CC-> Princeton, pregnancy → CC-> Smith).
An exception is the California CC->UCs pathway, and to a lesser extent some other CCs-> top state universities (like GA Perimeter → GA Tech, etc.), with credit transfer and financial aid nor always perfect.
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The point of the article I posted earlier was that even for the people intended to take California CC → UCs pathway, only 1 out of 10 made it to 4 years colleges. I read many posts from here or Reddit, CA kids treat CC as safety. If they cannot make it to top 6 UCs, they would rather go to CC then transfer. I doubt this is a good strategy given the odd of successful transfer. And out of the ones did transfer to top UCs, I wonder how many of them did get into impacted majors such as CS, ENG or Business? Would the kids better off just go to UCR/UCM or CSUs directly instead?
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I think that those thinking in terms of Top6UCs aren’t really the ones we should be concerned about. It’s clear the socio economic recruitment pool at Santa Monica college isn’t the same as at College of the Siskiyous. But the courses are homogenized and recognized throughout California.
Michigan,for example, considered CC STEM transfers unprepared and had them retake ALL STEM courses…while still charging them the Junior-Senior surcharge. As a result, Pell students were in a world of hurt.
In PA, CCs only seamlessly transfer to the regional public colleges (former teachers colleges which, from 2009 to Shapiro, were dreadfully funded and often didn’t offer Engineering or CS…) and not the State Related universities (ie., Penn State, Pitt, Temple). The way to do the 2year CC->flagship pathway common to CA CC->UC/CSU was to enroll at a Branch Campus (16k tuition).
@poissongamma : are you contemplating attending a CC?
It’s not only safety, but also a cost efficient way of doing it.
Btw Interesting anecdotes from 3 of D19’s good friends from high school (none of whom would even have applied to UCs from HS):
- Went to a CSU, partied too hard, was on the verge of dropping out anyway when COVID hit, dropped out, mooched around a year, went to Berkeley CC, and is about to complete graduation requirements from Cal next semester
- Went to SBCC intending to transfer to UCSB. Finished associates, left, worked a couple of years, is now enrolled for UCSB in the fall.
- Started off same as 2 but dropped out before completing associates. Is now annoyed at being the only one in the friend group who hasn’t “achieved” college wise and has re+enrolled in a local CC that TAGs to some UCs. Interesting peer pressure there!
It definitely works for some people.
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California has a lot of publicly available information, thankfully. For kids aiming for UCLA and Cal for CS, engineering, and business it’s an uphill road, but not impossible. You can view the admissions data for UC transfers by major: Transfers by major | University of California
The TAG program is an admissions guarantee for California Community College applicants to 6 of the UC’s (Davis, Irvine, Merced, Riverside, Santa Barbara, and Santa Cruz) for many majors (CS, nursing, and engineering are exceptions though -read the matrix carefully). If an applicants hits a certain GPA and completes the required courses, it’s automatic. More details on it here:
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Thank you all for your comments so far. I forgot to mention that I don’t want any anecdotes or information please.