5 reasons enrolling in community college may be a good idea — and 5 common mistakes to avoid
Community college seems like an oasis of affordable opportunity: It’s cheap! It’s nearby! And you can just see the number in your bank account ballooning with the salary boost from your new degree or certificate! But proceed with caution. Without a strategy, community college can also be a bonfire of wasted time and money.
The key, says Pamela Eddy, a professor of higher education at William and Mary, is to articulate your motivations and goals, and then — this is the hard part — see if they realistically line up with a community college program near you. If you’re keen on enrolling, do so for one of these five reasons, which typically provide the most bang for your buck:
1. You want to nail down an avocation
Not sure whether you’d like nursing or pipefitting or paralegaling? Community college is the place to affordably sort that out. “We often see first-time college students that are coming directly out of high school, unsure of the area that they want to go into, so they go to a community college to experiment and take a number of different courses to figure out where that ‘fit’ is,” Eddy says.
2. You need a workplace credential or skill
You can’t go wrong with a targeted plan to acquire a professional certificate or degree that will immediately boost your career. “These students often hop in for the short-term, gain their skill, then go along on their merry way,” Eddy says. This is one of the best reasons to enroll, though you should do your job research first. Confirm directly with local workplaces that your new credential or skill is one they want.
3. You’ve got your eye on switching to a technical, trade or health care career
Many programs serve as feeders to local businesses, which sometimes partner with the community college to train students and later hire them. “A lot of times the benefit of these technical programs is that faculty have very strong ties with industry,” says Xueli Wang, a professor of educational leadership at the School of Education at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Look for a program that has previously placed dozens of students in jobs you would want; and, again, check with employers that they’ll accept the training you’re getting.
4. You’ll be transferring to a four-year university
“If attending a four-year institution right away isn’t an option, then a community college with good transfer pathways would be a wonderful choice,” Wang says. Typically this happens when students have limited financial means or need to stay close to family. Make sure to study the community college’s information web page for details like how many credits will transfer, which credits, and GPA requirements. Check with four-year schools on this, too. “If there’s barely any information, that’s a red flag,” Wang says. Know that some top state schools, like U.C. Berkeley and the University of Texas at Austin, take community college transfers.
5. Pressing ‘re-do’ after an uninspiring high school career
If caring wasn’t your bailiwick in high school, this is your chance for a do-over. “It’s an opportunity for students who may not have engaged well in high school, or may not have been encouraged to even think of going to college,” Eddy says. “A good chunk of community college students are adults, and they come with a much more informed perspective, and they’re very targeted in what they want to learn.”
You have my permission to ignore the second-class education stigma that sometimes accompanies community college. It’s untrue. Lots of community college professors blow the socks off the lecturers you’d find at prestigious schools, and Wang says you’d be hard-pressed to find students who don’t have positive things to say about their experiences. (She would know: For a recent research project, she talked to over 1,600 of them.) Instead, put community college to its best use: grabbing an opportunity that might not otherwise fit into your day-to-day life.
Community college pitfalls to avoid
The Achilles heel of community colleges also happens to be their strength. They’re flexible, affordable and supportive of students from all walks of life. But because of that flexibility and chronic underfunding from state and local governments, “they’re often not providing very consistent, structured support,” says Xueli Wang, author of “On My Own: The Challenge and Promise of Building Equitable STEM Transfer Pathways,” for which she followed over 1,600 community college students for six years.
Wang found that community college students tend to be independent and self-reliant — admirable traits that can backfire when students go ahead and enroll in programs that, it turns out, don’t provide the job or transfer outcomes they’re assuming will materialize. Here are five common blunders to avoid:
1. Getting stuck with non-transferable credits
Most community college websites say something along the lines of “We serve associate’s degree seekers entering the workforce, as well as transfer students.” Some say “Begin your university degree here!” or “#1 transfer school!”
“When students see that, they are satisfied and enroll. A lot of the students in my study realized after several years that their programs and credits didn’t transfer,” Wang says. This can be deeply demoralizing, if not devastating. Many of the students in Wang’s study had to either defer their transfer, leave the program altogether, or get a one-year certificate or associate’s degree and head to work.
As a rule of thumb, you want to follow a transfer path that hundreds, if not thousands, of students have trod before you, and study the transfer requirements of the school you’ll be transferring into.
2. Not knowing the path
Many students, particularly teens and first-generation college students, enroll assuming that signing up for, say, a two-year degree in dental hygiene or engineering technology will result in two years of courses followed by a job in those fields.
“Whether students know the options that they could pursue often comes down to chance,” says Pamela Eddy, a professor of higher education at William and Mary. Students need to plot out the whole path, beginning to end, so they can choose programs and classes accordingly.
Appointments with school advisers are essential. Counselors can walk through the differences between certificate, two- and four-year programs, and, critically, what sorts of external degree programs or jobs those programs feed into. Talking to potential employers about whether they’ll accept your degree or certificate beforehand is also key.
3. Stopping without finishing a degree
“There’s a large group that pauses,” Eddy says. “You see this particularly with adult learners who may have had children, or have been laid off, so they stop with the idea that they’re going to come back at some point. And some just get derailed.”
It’s worth your while to pause with at least an associate’s degree in your pocket, or a formal credential. Figures from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics show those with two-year degrees earn $2,808 more annually than people who pause (and 15% more than high school diploma holders); four-year degree holders earn nearly 30% more than two-year degree holders.
4. Planning on a four-year degree in four years
Transfers into a four-year university commonly result in elongated time frames (usually from non-transferable credits, or calendar mismatches — perhaps you’ll be ready to transfer in January, and the university accepts transfer students only in September). Wang suggests that if you want a four-year degree and have similar access and financial opportunity at a nearby four-year program, “you should attend those institutions, rather than the community colleges and having to navigate transferring.”
She emphasizes that community college is a great path to a four-year degree when it’s providing an opportunity that otherwise wouldn’t be there, such as allowing a new mom to take flexible classes for two years.
5. Studying an academic-only subject
Community colleges generally focus on practical knowledge and real world applications. (There are exceptions.) Though you can study philosophy or ancient Chinese history, if you’re planning on going deep into academia or into a field where you’ll spend many years in school, such as physics, you’ll usually find better-suited programs at the local state university. Caveat: If community college is your only way into one of those four-year programs, then do it.
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