Which goes to the point I made about it being a small subset that is not worth changing a statewide system around for to the extent that it undercuts its own mission. You also seem to be overlooking the fact that a lot of people (maybe not in your area as “competitive public schools” tend to serve wealthy suburbs) start at CC because they cannot afford 4 years at a full college, not because of their attitudes towards CSUs.
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People see UCs and CSUs as interchangeable and they are for a lot of degrees. But I just wonder if the goal of a UC is a more theoretical education potentially with the aim for further academic study while CSUs are supposed to offer for hands on and job driven degrees (?).
CCs were supposed to be remedial or older population, but they are now capturing more and more kids trying to get into the UC system through transfer since it’s so much easier.
Curious if you also have the stats on the % of CC students that end up enrolling at a UC. My guess would be it’s small, again because I don’t think these highly competitive high schools are indicative of why the general population at a CC is there. Also, there is no way of knowing if the route was taken because of perceived prestige or because of cost reasons.
We shouldn’t forget either that the chart posted above is for less than 2/3 of high school graduates.
By the way, I am not sure that the idea of raising GPA for CSUs is going to change the notions of prestige. After all, how many of the same subgroup of people turn up their noses at UC Merced and decide to do CC to enter a “better” UC instead? As long as you have people grubbing for prestige,some sort of strata will emerge.
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There are a lot of reasons that students do the CC->UC route; it’s not necessarily because they are “below average” students. Some do it intentionally for cost savings. My D26 has a very good friend who is graduating HS this year and has planned all along to do 2 years of CC, then transfer to either UC or another university. She’s an above average student who could be going to a 4 year college, but she likes the CC->UC idea because it will cut college costs almost in half. And my S23 says that some of the nicest and smartest people he’s met in his major (EECS at UCB) are CC transfer students.
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I am sure many do it for cost, but our CC is very mediocre locally. We send boatload of kids to UCB as transfers. Kids who were B average students and didn’t get into UCs go to CC and transfer into top ones. It’s so much easier to transfer. That’s the reason kids from my son’s high school often go to CC route.
In some ways it’s unfair. The difficulty should be about the same coming from high school or CC.
Of course, I don’t know the particular kids you are talking about, but I just want to say that a B-average kid in high school might turn it around in CC and then be a star student in college. I don’t think kids necessarily deserve to be defined forever by their HS GPA.
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Students who successfully transfer had to prove themselves in college. All UCs’ transfer admit profiles indicate a 25th percentile prior college GPA higher than 3.0, so those high school B (3.0) students who got into UCs must have improved their GPAs in college relative to high school – which is uncommon, since most students’ college GPAs are lower than their high school GPAs. But those who do deserve their success, rather than being looked down on.
The students on the transfer pathway need to face an admission gate in college, which students who go to college as frosh do not (with the exception of secondary admission to major if they want majors that tend to do that, like nursing).
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True, but generally these aren’t kids who didn’t try. Speaking of over the past 10 years of watching my kids and their friends through our local school. It’s easy to be a star student at some CCs, like ours. My son took microecon class this semester online. He did exactly one hour of work per week and got an A. It’s a shame.
I think generally neither path should be easier or harder. Clearly high school path is harder. I would take more first years to balance that out, but politically it’s a no go.
Introductory economics is not an especially difficult or high workload course, whether it is at a community college, a UC, or in high school (AP course).
Yep, as an example I and a number of other parents here have kids who were diagnosed late with ADHD, affecting part of their high school GPA. Other kids may have had various other issues ranging from maturity to issues at home affecting grades. And in a milieu of widespread grade inflation at high schools and without the benefit of standardized testing, the gaps probably seem wider than they are in practice for a good number of kids who have high potential to succeed at UCs but who for whatever reason cannot show that at the consistent high school level required for freshman entry. I’m glad that they have an alternative.
As for late bloomers, those exist too. One of D19’s friends went to a non impacted cal state, dropped out during Covid, went to a CC and ended up at Cal and graduating with a very decent GPA. The intention was never to do the CC-UC route when she graduated from high school, but it ended up that way.
I think sometimes people forget, in the discussion of what is “fair” or “should”, that the purpose of a public university system is to educate the public. It’s not for bragging rights about who went to the best one in the system and how they got there.
Anyway, either this thread is way off topic now or we need a title change.
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Go look up equivalent classes elsewhere. One hour of work per week is not what that looks like in other places. Mine supplemented with MIT lectures just to learn something.
And I can start telling you stories about physics and math…. My friend’s daughter had to drop out of her major after transferring to Berkeley because she was so ill prepared for math (all A student) that she couldn’t handle any upper divisions. Not all CCs are like that. I know some are excellent and many of us drive to get to better ones, but if you want to do absolute nothing and get an A, you can here. No quality control at all. This is the reason I am all for standardized testing. Even for transfers.
To be fair, I think lots of kids drop out of their major at Berkeley, even those high achievers coming straight out of high school. This is true at any university really; there are kids who are sure they are going to become doctors or engineers, are accepted into biochem or engineering majors, and then change majors when they find out the reality.
My personal experience with CC education is when I took several pre-reqs to apply to nursing school–I worked harder academically than I ever had before (had a previous Bachelor’s degree) to get A’s, which was basically a requirement of any local nursing program. Some of the very best instructors I ever had were those at our local CCs.
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You can change your major because you changed interest, but you shouldn’t have to drop out of it because your CC didn’t prepare you.
Nursing programs seem to be particular strength of CS, even here. 
What I’m trying to say is that biochem and engineering majors can be very challenging, and even high-achieving high schoolers change their majors because of that. These are kids who were ostensibly “prepared” by their high schools, enough that they were accepted into these difficult majors at UCB and other competitive universities and then find that a whole other level of preparedness is required.
Just to clarify, when I said “star student in college” I meant when they ultimately transfer to UC. For example, my sister went the CC->UC route and graduated as the top student in her department at UCB.
In fact, I think it can be particularly difficult for some high achieving students coming from less challenging HS environments, where they were able to coast along as a top student without ever having to work hard. Pretty much everyone has to work hard at Berkeley and it’s helpful if you already learned rock-solid study habits somewhere, either in HS or CC.
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Also with so much education available for free, I hope we get to the day degrees are not required. I would rather go through rigorous interview process or skilled based exam.
no need to wonder. That is exactly the design of the California Master Plan for Higher Education (1960). In brief, UC was supposed to be for the top 1/8th of the graduating class, and the Cal States were planned to accept the top 1/3rd. (Not saying some top decile kids don’t attend a CSU or even a cc to save money… the 1/8th 1/3rd was how they came with the GPA’s and test scores.)
That is incorrect. While they have evolved in that direction, UC campuses have always reserved thousands of slots for transfers from cc.
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Actually quick search supports what I am saying that UC system is meant to be more research focused and CSU more hands on. That means one would be geared more towards kids wanting to pursue academia and other more for kids wanting to go to work. Not that all UC kids will be academics, but it does seem to imply that two systems should be attracting kids seeking different types of education.
You’re surely not suggesting that UCs at undergrad level should be limited to those wanting academia only. That would cut many (most?) of Berkely’s engineering undergrads out for example.
Anyway, the system is what it is. You can figure out how to deal with it as is, or not.
It wouldn’t be particularly surprising if the parts of CA with “less challenging” HS preparation are also the places with “less challenging” CC preparation. After all a substantial part of that HS class will head on to a local CC and it wouldn’t be a good outcome if they all flunked out of their classes there.
Even a locally oriented CSU might conceivably experience the same thing (how much moderation of standards actually happens between campuses?). Isn’t that really what is driving part of the complaint about CSUMB not being as attractive as a UC would have been in the same location (which might be assumed to attract more capable students from around the state and have a wider range of more challenging courses)?
But if you have higher standards you either need better preparation or a bunch of remedial courses. In theory that’s what CC is supposed to provide but it sounds like there’s not enough validation happening of UC-transferable courses? Or that the area doesn’t attract enough good teachers (it wouldn’t surprise me if pay is too low for the living costs on the central coast)?
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