Opinion: In defense of two-year colleges

Earlier this week, the Associated Press published a column by Collin Binkley that was titled “Waste of Time: Community College Transfers Derail Students.” The author cites the case of a young woman who transferred from a community college to California State University, Bakersfield.

The young woman said that the university rejected “most of her science classes… because they were deemed less rigorous than those at Bakersfield.” The young woman said, “It just feels like a waste of time. I thought I was supposed to be going to a CSU and starting hard classes and doing a bunch of cool labs.”

What went wrong?

I started at a community college and transferred to a state college. I finished my A.A. degree from Foothill College (it was not called Foothill Community College) in two years and my B.A. from San Jose State College (at the time, it was not called San Jose State University) in two more years. Truthfully, I was not a good student (majored in co-eds) until my 7th semester of college. Yet, I made it through on schedule. So, what went wrong?