Why Community Colleges Are Great for Financially Savvy Students

“I wash my hands in innocence and go around your altar, oh Lord, proclaiming thanksgiving aloud, and telling all your wondrous deeds.”

Psalm 26:6-7

Welp, I did it. Earlier this month, I walked across that stage. I received my diploma for my Associate’s degree with Highest Honors in Research. This officially marks the halfway point in my journey through college. Also, I am currently debt-free. The whole experience felt surreal and incredible. If you had asked me for my senior year in high school, I never would have pictured myself crossing that stage with my head high.

How did I do it?

There were many factors at play. A supportive family, a tight-knit community, developing a customized study routine, and one other thing:

Attending a community college.

Now, I know what you are probably thinking. “Oh, Belen, aren’t community colleges for people whose grades weren’t good enough to get them into a 4-year university?”

And the answer is a resounding NO.

More and more, young people are choosing to attend community colleges before transferring to 4-year universities. This is for a multitude of reasons, with the most obvious one being how much money it costs to attend a four-year university. If you are not on scholarships (which I always recommend applying for) or insanely rich, going to a 4-year college for all four years can put you into debt for the next twenty years. This is especially true in the economy of the 21st century.

This does not mean that attending a university for all four years is impossible or guaranteed to push you into a pit of debt. Still, it is becoming harder and harder to graduate debt-free and ready to enter the workforce. On the other hand, students who transfer from community colleges are academically, mentally, and financially in unexpectedly good places. They transition positively when they move on to their higher education and careers.

So without further ado, here are 5 reasons that I think that if you are a high school senior or college hopeful, you should consider attending a community college.

Table of Contents:

Your tuition tends to be insanely inexpensive.

Community college tuition is less than a quarter of what it costs to attend a semester at a university. Over my time at community college, I never had to pay a tuition exceeding $1,300 in total for a semester. Community colleges often provide substantial financial aid to students in need. They also offer numerous merit-based scholarships for students with high grades and GPAs. One semester, I even had my college pay ME some money. It happened because I had gotten too much money in scholarships and tuition refunds.

You get to interact with a variety of people.

When you attend a 4-year university, you are with your “peers,” meaning people your age pursuing the same degree and on roughly the same career path. In community college classes, however, you will be learning alongside working mothers, foreign exchange students, and many other types of people. You might not normally interact with them in your daily life. This setting provides immense diversity in the perspectives and stories you get to experience.

You are able to stay and study close to home.

Let’s face it: transitioning from high school to college is a BIG change. One minute you are just enjoying life as a teenager, and then BAM, you have all the weight and choices of adulthood thrust on you. This happens when you turn 18 and/or graduate high school. This sudden change can give students a sense of whiplash. They are expected to move out of their family houses, start a full-time job, head off to a university, and begin living independent lives. However, since almost every city and district has community colleges close by, young people do not have to “rush off” to a university. They can ease into adult life, living at home for as long as they need to. They can also work locally in the community.

There are tons of untapped opportunities.

Community colleges have TONS of resources available to their students! I was at my college for three years and was still discovering new things I had access to at the time of my graduation. Colleges have all kinds of opportunities. These include scholarships, internships, competitions, campus events, and chances to be published or present at conferences. These opportunities can occur locally and across the state. So you can get your name out there (academically) before you ever transfer to a prestigious big-name university!

You are prepared to transition to university.

Community college offers a low-stakes trial run for one’s time at a university. There is still a good bit at stake, and the grades you get in your classes still go onto your transcript. However, community colleges are typically much smaller than universities in both size and attendance. In addition, you can form relationships with your instructors since your classes are small. Your professors actually have time to learn each of their students’ names.

Of course, it is essential to remember that college, and school in general, is like a shoe: different kinds of institutions and education fit everyone differently. Some people do better at universities than at community colleges, which is perfectly fine. All I hope I was able to do in this post is slightly change your perspective on community colleges. Consider what kind of people attend them.

Thank you for reading and I hope to be able to post again very soon.

Please like, comment, and subscribe if you connected with my post. If you would like to see more of my crazy, exciting journey through life with Christ while experiencing mental illness, do let me know. Every interaction I receive here means the world to me. Thank you, and God bless you!

Until next time!