alt Hacker News> Unless you get a full ride you probably should start at community college. You can then transfer later and generally you'll have a better variety to choose from.
This does not make sense if you (like most UC students) are in-state. You're right that it's easier to get in as a CC transfer, but you'll miss out on a lot of the bonding experience that happens as freshmen. And if you want, you could always transfer from one UC to another, if you're looking to upgrade your diploma from Irvine to LA, for example. It's probably worth it to have the better network of the freshmen you met at Irvine rather than going to a CC in LA for two years. It would be cheaper, but networks can be incredibly valuable.
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Is that bonding experience worth another 12500$ a year ? CC is about 1500$ in tuition for a full 30 units vs 14000$ at a UC per year.
I made life long friends in community college.
Plus college doesn't work out for everyone, better to spend 3000$ figuring that out over 28k.
If you pay your own way and go the absolute cheapest path, your spending 3k at community college for 2 years and about 14k for 2 years at a Cal State. 17k total.
Vs 14k a year at a UC and around 56k for all 4.
This really depends on your financial situation though. For a lot of families this isn't a lot of money.
I was a transfer to UCSD - the transfer community itself is pretty large and one college (Sixth) houses a significant percentage, with dorms specifically for transfers. IMO there was far higher interesting diversity of folks there compared to rest of campus: veterans, addicts who got their shit together, tons of immigrants who couldn't afford going straight to UC (as well as your standard mostly 20-22 year old SoCal transfers) from which most people I know formed good networks.