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Community colleges are an excellent opportunity for students who are not yet quite ready — academically or financially — for prime time BY MARISA WONG When Courtney Disposti graduated from the Pingry School in Martinsville, N.J., she had no clue what she wanted to do. Her GPA — and her motivation — had plummeted during her last two years. One thing she knew for sure: she was not ready to leave home and jump into four more years of classes and homework. "Everyone told me I was throwing my life away by not applying to colleges," Disposti says. "No one thought I would go back to school. But I just needed time to grow up." After a year and a half of working and traveling, Disposti enrolled at Raritan Valley Community College in New Jersey to seek some direction. And direction is exactly what she got. Disposti maintained a 3.8 GPA during her 2 1Ž2 years there. She took honors courses and served as vice president of college service for the national honor society Phi Theta Kappa. In fact, Raritan Valley provided her with so much direction, it practically led her to the steps of Columbia University, where she starts as a junior transfer student this fall. "I would not have been accepted at Columbia out of high school," says Disposti, who hopes to go on to law school. "Raritan Valley gave me the confidence and focus I needed to head off to a big university."
Disposti is among 5.4 million students — 44% of all American undergraduates — who enroll in one of the nation's 1,132 community colleges each year. This year about a quarter of high school seniors will head directly to a community college rather than to a four-year institution. Why? Some don't have the grades or the drive for a traditional four-year education. Others lack the money to pay the higher tuition. Then there are the 18-year-olds who just aren't ready to leave home and live on their own. "I graduated with a low GPA from high school and knew I had to start somewhere," says Alex Mullineaux, who attended Seminole Community College in Florida and is transferring to Florida State University this fall. "I wasn't ready for the large scale of a big university, and I lacked the study skills I needed to be successful." Community colleges, with their open access, can be an invaluable alternative — or stepping stone — to a four-year school. "Community colleges have three main advantages," says Norma Kent, director of communications for the American Association of Community Colleges. "They tend to be close to home, so students can live at home and save money or balance work schedules. They have comparatively smaller classes, and the teachers are there to teach, not to focus on research. And you can save thousands of dollars and still get a quality education." The average community-college tuition, at $1,518 a year, is a bargain compared with $3,356 for a public college and $15,380 for a private one. Most community colleges offer many evening and weekend classes to accommodate the 80% of their students who hold jobs. That is one of the reasons the average student is 29 years old (although 40% of all students are 22 or younger). Many older adults look to community colleges to brush up on the latest technologies, so classes often consist of students who are anywhere from 18 to 80. There is a downside, though. Forget bonding with dormmates, wild campus parties and crowded Saturday football games. Because most community colleges do not offer housing, they lack the campus feel of residential colleges. "People don't hang around socially," says Martin Briggs, who transferred from the College of Alameda in California to the University of California at Davis last year. "They're there to take classes and get out." Where do they go when they get out? Some go right into better jobs, armed with certificates in vocational skills such as mechanics or computer and information sciences. Statistics indicate that workers with an associate's degree earn 24% more than those with just a high school diploma. Many students, though, go on to get a B.A. Most community colleges have partnerships with four-year institutions to which they actively help students transfer. A study from the American Association of Community Colleges shows that community-college transfer students perform just as well as those who started at the four-year university as freshmen. In many states, such as California, community-college students who maintain a minimum GPA (2.4 for California residents) and complete required courses are automatically accepted to at least one of the state's universities. For California, this amounts to about 57,000 community-college transfers into the state's public institutions each year. "If you go to a community college, you can look forward to a spot in two years," says Gary Tudor, director of undergraduate admissions at the University of California at Davis. "You get good preparation, lower costs and another chance to qualify for a university." Indeed, because many schools reserve admissions spots for community-college transfers, it is often easier getting into a four-year university as a transfer student than as a high school senior. Regina Kan, for example, enrolled at Diablo Valley College in California after she was rejected by the three California universities she had applied to in high school. After bringing her GPA up to a 3.5 during her two years at D.V.C., she was accepted to seven of the state's eight universities as a transfer student. She now attends UCLA. Like Disposti, she found that community college helped prepare her to succeed. "I learned more about myself, became more focused, independent and confident," says Kan, an anthropology major. "I look back on my life and look at where I am now — I'm so happy and proud of myself." Kan, however, does have a few words of advice for students who decide to go to community college: "You're going to junior college to study, get good grades and get out. If you don't, you'll be there forever. The key is motivation and dedication."
Source: TIME/The Princeton Review's The Best College For You 2001
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