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Comment by atarian | Hacker News Reader

Why not send your future kids to community college and then have them transfer?

If I understand this strategy, you send them to community college for the first two years, where they take their general ed requirements. Then they transfer to a "real" (expensive) college for the last two years, for the deeper/more specialized courses. It's not a bad strategy (we may do it with one of our children). But if higher cost is the problem, this solves less than half of it. Half because they still go to an expensive college for two years. Less than half, because the two years at a community college aren't free, either.

Community College is cheap, really cheap. I took CC classes during the summer while I was in school, working an internship at the same time, to knock out some of my humanities classes. In total, it cost me around $1500 to take 15 credit hours of classes there (compared to $7k + fees for the same at my college).

But, you're right, it does solve a little less than half the cost. Which is awesome! If you wanted to go to a nice restaurant and could buy a Groupon that would let you get $100 of food for $55, that would be a great deal, despite it not being free.

The linked article specifically mentions that the CC safety net is fraying as well - costs for middle class income brackets range 11% to 22% instead of 16% to 45% (across various other options and states; unfortunately all 8 states mentioned are different so no direct comparisons).

So yeah, they are cheaper but not all of them necessarily offer the same discount your anecdote provides.

By the way, while we're on such topics, don't forget CLEP tests. You learn a topic well enough to pass the test, pay your fee, take a two-hour test, and (if you pass) wind up with college credit that is recognized by many (most?) universities.

That's the plan for our son who will be going in a couple years. He doesn't know what he wants to do, so why pay much more (not that its super cheap, but cheaper than many other options). I myself transferred schools multiple times - the greatest thing is the credits transfer, but the gpa does not, so if you screw up a few classes in the beginning, you can reset that.

In the end people really only look what you list on your resume - not the first x years, but where you graduated from and how well you did at the end.

My transfer credit was included in my GPA. :( It isn't too bad, but still.

I spent my last 2 years of high school getting an AS before going to my state school. I wouldn't recommend it to high achieving students, at all.

You wouldn't.. why?

1) I'm very concerned about the perception of having an AS. This may not be a rational concern, but I've removed it from my resume to reduce risk.

2) Opportunities at CC's are limited compared to even non-flagship state universities (no research, etc), although you can of course still get other opportunities at other local universities.

3) You're effectively tied to your state school. I'm lucky that NC has one well-regarded flagship, but not everybody wants to go to their state school anyway. Higher level coursework won't transfer to private universities.

4) My early college program limited what coursework we could take, so I still need 2.5-4 years to graduate with a CS degree from my state school even with significant credit which negates the cost advantage in my case.

5) The peer group can be hit or miss. With that said, there were __many__ very intelligent and hardworking people in my classes.

With all that said, some people can still make the best of it. My school graduated their first Harvard admit this year (but then again, he might have been legacy). We've had 2 Duke admits, 1 Cornell - the rest go to UNC or lower ranked schools like myself.

Doing it again I would have probably gone to my state's boarding school instead.

Why would you list an AS on your resume? If the idea is to transfer to one of the state schools and finish up there, wouldn't you just list your BS?

I know some people that listed their AS too. Of course you don't need to.

Assuming they can get into college after that. If you think competition is fierce in a world of 7 billion people, imagine how it will look with 8 or 9 or 10.

You're making a lot of negative predictions about a world that is changing pretty drastically. Maybe you're right and we're headed for a dystopian future. While that's certainly a possibility, there are many other positive possibilities your children could experience (psuedo post-scarcity through the singularity, virtual reality, etc).

I'd wager the odds are quite good that life will be a more positive experience in the next 150 years than in the period of "dawn of mankind" - 1900.

If I have kids and am right about humanity's bleak future, I both sacrificed my well-being to support children, and brought more sufferers into this world.

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