I'd like to offer a big old fat fuck you to every person who has ever maligned community colleges. Thanks to your classist bullshit, thousands of students everywhere believe that if they go to a community college they won't be able to get into a "good" college later

I'm struggling with my own kid! Her high school has so insulted community colleges that even she is convinced that if she doesn't go into debt immediately at a bigger school she won't be able to get into medical school.

She can attend my CC for FREE. That's one of the faculty & staff's most precious benefits: our kids can go tuition free. Two years there and two years at a uni & she'd be able to graduate with her B.S. almost debt free but the counselors make it seem like she'd be doomed.

Students who transfer from my CC do better than the native students at the transfer school (this is common for CC grads). They are MORE prepared for upper level courses. Yet the propaganda surrounding CCs creates a much different impression.

One of my closest friends is a physician and even she said "oh if she goes to a CC and then transfers she'll have a much harder time keeping up in the Bio program, she'll be behind." That is HOW STRONG this propaganda is.

It doesn't matter that I teach at one and have had students who are now MDs and PhDs. It doesn't matter that I'm a grad of this CC and also have a PhD. What she's hearing from teachers & counselors at her high school undermines me at every turn.

I don't want this to turn into a uni prof bashing fest, because there are wonderful professors everywhere. But the narrative that CCs are of lower quality implies that CC profs don't know what they're doing, and we feel that.

And this narrative is more than just personally insulting, it's damaging on multiple layers, b/c it discourages families to genuinely consider CCs and helps maintain this horrible cycle of never ending student debt.