Reply #8: I have attended a total of

[SheilaT]

six different community colleges (2) and public universities (4), and in general the community colleges were better than the universities. However, once you reach upper-division level coursework, the public universities are themselves quite good.

Also, depending on your son's interests and academic abilities, he might want to go straight into a vocational program. Those are what the community colleges excel at, and he can start work, often earning quite a decent wage, very quickly.

My older son recently completed a CAD degree at his local community college, and has just landed a very good entry-level job in that field. The entire engineering field is one that typically has lots of job openings. Of course, if he has no interest or aptitude in that field, it's not a great idea for him.

Another thing community colleges tend to be great at is culinary programs.

Anyway, you are making a great decision for him, getting through school with minimal debt. The only real down side of starting out this way is that there's usually no real campus life at the community colleges, but that's not a tragedy.