Noam Chomsky: Modern universities designed to ‘deprive you of your freedom’

[SomeGuyInEagan]

54. Community colleges are built to teach ...

Very few community college instructors - even those working toward a tenured position - have to publish or research. They are there to teach and serve on college committees which deal with the business of the college, which is teaching students.

Community colleges don't get research grants and don't have the deep pocket donors to academic programs that (some) four-year schools have, so they are for the most part dependent on two sources of money to operate: state funding and tuition. State funding has been in decline the past 30 years (a never discussed major reason for tuition increases, even Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone left this out of his recent piece on student debt). So, tuition needs to go up to offset the loss of state money.

Community colleges tend to have very good teachers because they have to - they are dealing with a much wider variety of student backgrounds and skills plus they need the tuition dollar even more than the four-year schools who have more than two legs to their funding chairs.

Most people would be surprised how good teaching is at the community college level in the U.S.

If a four-year-degree is your goal, look into community colleges as an option for part of the education. And be sure to check transfer agreements - even within public schools in the same college system, credit transfers may be tricky and dependent on a department head (always get it in writing, with a signature).