I worked for four years as an English teacher at a large high school in suburban Houston. Talking with my students—all of them juniors—I got the sense that the school counselors gave the exact same advice to every single student: go to community college first; get your basics out of the way; save money. I got really annoyed by this. It wasn’t annoying that they advised community college. Community college is real college, and don’t listen to anyone who tells you different. What annoyed me was that they made the advice universal, the same for everyone. Community college is real college, but like any other type of college, it isn’t the best fit for every single student. In fact I think it’s a bad fit for most college-bound high school students.

I’m going to explain why you should be cautious about planning on community college, but then I’m going to tell you when you shouldn’t listen to me about that. My advice to avoid community college isn’t any more universal than the counselors’ advice to start with community college.

My main concern with beginning at community college and then transferring to a four-year school for a bachelor’s has nothing to do with quality or curriculum. There are really amazing professors at community colleges, and it’s easy to get a high-quality education at most community colleges. My concern is that college is more than curriculum, it’s culture. While you’re at community college getting your basics, a lot is going on at your eventual four-year college with the first- and second-year students there. You’re missing two years of the social bonds that come with starting at a university. Yes, you get social bonds at community college also, but not all those people will follow you to the same university. (If you go to a community college where most of the graduates do go on to the same university, then this problem is of course minimized.) When you begin at a community college, you don’t get early exposure to the professors who will be teaching your upper-level courses in your major and possibly recommending you to graduate programs or internships. You aren’t getting to know any clubs and organizations, and you aren’t making yourself a part of them.

If you’re only in college for the diploma and the credentials, then you may not be bothered much by this. That’s fine. But for a lot of people their university becomes a fairly big part of their identity and the launching point for the trajectory of their life, and doing the first two years of that someplace else can have an outsized effect. This applies not just to community college students but anyone who transfers from one college to another. As someone who transferred from a small liberal arts college to a state university after two years, I can still remember the feeling of not really belonging to either of them. It took a while to get past that. Obviously, lots of people overcome this problem. I did, and millions of others did. But I still think you should be warned that the problem exists.

Also speaking of culture: if you do go to community college, pay close attention to who you’re spending your time with. If you find yourself hanging out and studying with people who are all determined that this is a step on the way to a bachelor’s degree, then it’s easier to keep up your own determination. If you find yourself with a group who are drifting and biding their time, then you can easily end up with the same approach. Normal is, by definition, whatever you’re surrounded by. Choose mindfully what your normal will be at community college.

There’s another ugly truth to four-year colleges you should be aware of: most people don’t graduate in four years. If you’re really going to spend five to seven years in college, then doing two of them at a much more affordable community college makes a lot of sense. But please keep in mind that not all your credits will transfer perfectly or fulfill requirements for your major. For some, beginning at community college is actually what hinders them from graduating in four years. There’s not a simple and easy way to know which approach will be most affordable, especially without financial aid packages in hand to compare.

My biggest concern about community college is for the students who don’t make a decision to go to community college, but use community college as a way to avoid or delay a decision. They’re not sure if college is “right for them,” or they’re not sure where they want to go to college, or they didn’t have the help and resources they need to make a good college decision. So they’re going to go to community college to just give it a try. This is often where the word “just” comes into the equation, as in “I’m just going to go to community college for a year and figure out what to do next.” Whenever “just” is part of your thinking, there’s a problem. It usually means you’re selling yourself short and not realizing everything you’re capable of.

So I think community college is probably not the best option for college-bound high school students. If you’ve got the motivation, skills, and resources to do community college right, then you’ve probably got what it takes to go straight to a four-year college and do it right, too.

So this is when we talk about when you should not listen to me and should go ahead and plan on community college. If for any reason you haven’t yet got the motivation, skills, or resources to thrive in a four-year college, then community college is a great option. There’s no shame or problem with that. If you graduate high school without the motivation, skills, or resources to begin college, it’s almost certainly not your fault. You are at a high school that doesn’t have college readiness as a focus, or you had trauma or difficulties that got in the way. Your financial aid documents weren’t ready in time or you didn’t have support in getting them in the first place. You didn’t have help putting together a balanced college list or the resources at home and/or school to do it successfully. For many people, all of the above are true. If this is the case, then community college is absolutely the place for you. It’s the place where you decisively change your path and the course of your future. It’s where you refuse to let the failures of the system you came from affect the system you go into. It’s a resourceful and affordable and, for many, liberating place. It’s a different path to a bachelor’s degree than going straight to a four-year college, but it’s a well-worn and viable path. And it needs repeating: community college is real college.

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