Community Colleges Deserve a Better Reputation

From an early age, it has been drilled into my head from family, teachers, counselors, and more that college comes after high school. Counselors coming into elementary school classrooms telling 8-year old kids to start planning their future is a different story, but it got me thinking about college from a young age. When they said college, I thought of Ivy League schools like Harvard, Yale, and other prestigious schools like UCLA. These were the schools that were glamorized by the public, and became ingrained in my mind. It wasn’t until years later that I learned what community colleges are, and years after that to break free of a common misconception.

Community colleges have many benefits, often overlooked by prospective students. Community colleges offer lower tuition costs, smaller class sizes, transferable credits, flexible scheduling, and many more perks. In addition, professors can spend more time with students, because professors at larger universities often have research projects on top of their classes. These benefits are often overlooked by prospective students because of a common misconception that they offer a lower level of education. While most community colleges don’t offer bachelor’s programs, they instead offer associates and certificates degrees. These degrees can focus on preparing students for transferring to a university to get a bachelor’s degree, or preparing a student for a particular career. 

I’m not saying that students should forgo applying to universities and colleges in favor of community college. Studies have shown that Ivy League graduates make significantly more on average than other college graduates. However, in the past years Ivy League admissions have been decreasing. According to prepscholar.com, “2020-2021, as a whole, was the toughest year to date to get into an Ivy League or similar top-tier school.” So while Ivy League schools are great, they can’t be a student’s only plan.

Overall, community colleges shouldn’t be viewed as “less than” private or Ivy League schools. While it is great that students want to take the initiative to apply to private universities, community colleges should not be overlooked.