Here in Somedayland, we have a community college nearby. Like, in our exact town. It does not have dorms, and therefore it can’t provide the traditional, residential “college experience.” The other thing it does not have, is an exorbitant price tag for the local residents who are ALREADY PAYING FOR THIS PLACE in their annual property tax assessments.
That’s right. The local community college is similar to the public school system in that the residents pay for it, whether they use it or not. The considerable tax dollars, however, are still not enough to sustain the massive budget needed to support such an enterprise, and so there is a cost to attend.
As I write this, the tuition and fee price for one credit hour is $154. Assuming an average of 30 hours per year as a full time student, with the suggested textbook budget of $600 per semester (more on that later!) you come in at less that $6,000 per year.
In prior posts on college debt we have assumed the student is pursuing a bachelor’s degree, but that’s not always necessary. Community colleges are slap full of two year, associate’s degrees designed to produce job-ready people. Assuming that the student is able to live and eat for free nearby with someone, presumably parents or similar family units, and that the student has access to our local bus system, a ride with somebody, or their own car, the total cost of a two-year education with no financial aid of any kind would be $12,000.
Even if you had to take loans for the whole thing, because you just have no other options, you are looking at a far lower debt load than we see in many cases.
Community Colleges specialize in associate’s degrees that provide actual job training. Typically in high-demand fields that need workers, right now. Fields like nursing or paramedic. Trades like HVAC (Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning), Electrician, and Welding. Education like daycare teacher or higher grade teacher’s aide. And Business, typically basic management and accounting. It is entirely possible and perfectly respectable to follow this path, amass minimal debt, and get to work in just two years.
Community Colleges also always offer a general transfer degree that is specifically designed to include coursework equivalent to that offered at a standard four-year college or university at a fraction of the cost. This is for those who plan to complete a four-year, bachelor’s degree by transferring somewhere else. It covers the same composition, speech, math, science, humanities, foreign language (Spanish, typically, and sometimes others) and social science options that you would get anywhere else and that more or less every freshman and sophomore college student has to complete. They also have advisors and counselors who can help verify this for whatever institution you are scoping out. These degrees can typically be customized further if you know what your major will be after you transfer.
I work at a large company that requires college degrees for many of our jobs. Many of our entry level jobs are hard to fill and retain because they entail overnight and weekend hours, among other reasons. On top of that we have a lot of internal opportunity so those who stick around are typically looking for a promotion as soon as possible, freeing up those entry jobs once again.
This puts Someday Wise in a position to talk to a wide and diverse range of recent graduates about their educational journeys. One such person told me the tale of how he carried $20,000 in college debt after attending a middling state university where he obtained a bachelor’s degree in biology. He seemed almost apologetic for attending such a pathetic university. His girlfriend, he explained, had gone to a “much more prestigious college,” a little old selective, snooty prepster place for rich kids in the big city nearest to Somedayland.
At said fancy college, said girlfriend had amassed $80,000 in college debt while completing a bachelor’s degree in English. This in spite of the fact that she had secured a full ride at some lesser institution in Wisconsin. I don’t remember if this rejected college was Carthage College, but from what fuzzy details remain in my not-so-wise memory, I think it likely. Why did she reject this full ride offer, I asked? Much more prestigious was again the answer.
I explained to this person that there was nothing whatsoever wrong with the middling state university he had attended, and further that his biology degree from this down-to-earth, come-as-you-are type of regional school, was likely to serve his future career interests far better than this girlfriend’s English degree would serve hers. Certainly no worse. I regretfully told him that she was probably mistaken in believing that an expensive English degree was going to lead to a substantially different job outcome than a free one. He brushed it all off, saying her family was rich enough to cover the payments if she couldn’t. And anyway, the damage was done.
There are so many ways these two could have saved money, and if this young lady was smart enough to earn a full ride somewhere, she should have been smart enough to take it. If she really did not want to do that, and absolutely had to get that fancy prep school attached to her B.A., she could have gone to community college for two years and then transferred (Ha! At this point it should be clear she was having none of that lowbrow community college stuff). He could have done the same and perhaps graduated debt free by transferring to the public U for his last two years.
How much money could both of them had saved if they had gone to their local community college for the first two years? I don’t know, and they did both get some partial scholarship money that may not have been available as transfer students, but likely they still could have saved tens of thousands of dollars. I did not get the impression anyone even ran the math. Instead, they can share the pleasure of sending no fewer than 100,000 little green pieces of paper to people other than themselves as they begin their blissful lives together and going into their foreseeable future. Not including interest.
When you complete an associate’s transfer degree at a community college, and then go on to wherever you plan to complete your bachelor’s, you literally get TWO DEGREES for LESS THAN THE PRICE OF ONE.
If you want to tell me, this would be fine, Someday, except that my student wants to study _______ major, which is not available at the community college, and you really have to be in the program from the start, because you can’t make up the missed classes later, well then you will want to hear about chargeback agreements. Coming soon. Have a nice day!
Someday Wise 