You're right, not all student sections are created equally

In theory, yes, but in reality, many people on this route won't end up finishing the university portion in just two years. You end up being in school for a total of least 5 years (2 community and 3 university). Two big reasons:

  • Pre-reqs. Often times majors will have a long series of courses that must be complete be completed in successive order. The problem: the earlier classes in the series aren't always offered at tech/community colleges -- especially with STEM majors. For example, the local tech college by me has several different programming courses, but not a formal Algorithms course... which is an earlier course in a university CS sequence. More importantly, even if they do offer it, it often isn't as rigorous. You end up cheating yourself.

  • General reqs - Universities continue to change and refine these each year, meaning fewer and fewer courses are transferring -- and that's more money for them! The community and tech colleges don't always have the right courses you need either.

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