I understand where you are coming from in regards to elite university. Certainly if a student can get admitted into an ivy league they should at least inquire about eligible aid packages. I would assume someone with the intellect to get admitted there would put in the work to explore all options.

Ivy league is a shrinking circle of spots and does not represent the majority of where exceptionally talented students go to as a result. Lets just take the example I cited with the top 15% of high school students in each high school in NJ would likely exceed the available spots at all Ivy Leagues. You mentioned public institutions in your original message. States have programs in place to ensure exceptional students are taken care of.

>Also, I am not sure if you know people taking CC courses recently, but they are often taught in a way that gives you what you paid for at $0. Prerecorded canned lectures, infuriating and curiosity crushing online worksheets, etc. I know multiple people who were excited to do free CC when it was made free for older (30+) students whose academic aims were immediately stamped out within one semester because there was no college instruction. Just endless online worksheets. These things exist in other higher ed paths too, but truly not to the extent that I've witnessed.

I was admitted to an Engineering school but due to severe health issues with family, I was forced to move closer and enroll in community college so I have gone through this experience in a unique way (Enrolled at University -> Transfered to CC -> Transferred back to University).

This was ~15 years ago but during that time all the teachers at the CC had Masters degrees in their field and also had additional teaching credentials(some had PHDs).

I found that instruction was very focused on ensuring students learned material vs my experience at my public Research based university where either TAs taught courses or professors focused on their research would reluctantly lecture as a requirement.

I will concede that instruction in subjects like Math/Physics were not of the same caliber as university only because while CCs tended to give examinations consisting of hard versions of the practice problems assigned as homework, my Engineering university expected me to to deeply understand the material and would give very unique problems during the common exams that test the deeper understanding vs just technique.

I am surprised to hear the anecdote that you expressed as that wouldn't pass muster with the university accreditation bodies as well as the admissions departments of the public universities that renew the "transfer agreements" with the CCs. In NJ there is a requirement of a minimum standard of instruction needed or else the receiving university has the right to reject course credit from the CC and rescind transfer agreements. The universities know who comes from the CCs and they are assessing academic performance of those students. For example Rutgers does this with some CC in their CS classes as the subject material is not 1:1(they are offered as general elective credit instead so still allows the student to not fall too behind).

Let me ask you was this anecdote occuring during COVID? Maybe that accounts for the strange online instruction?