pretty quick to dismiss community college. I took lower division classes at one, my math classes were taught by PhDs or people with three decades of math and statistics experience. The rigor was pretty good, I transferred to a very good school from the community college and was well prepared.

1. The point was "there is a standard of rigor that you don't experience at every school". I could have used anything as an example. It doesn't matter that I picked community college. If you agree with that statement, then do you disagree with the conclusion: that once you go down that path, you the student, have a burden to explain to everyone how the quality of education compares with the best?

Technically, yeah, I made a generalization: cheaper schooling means shittier quality education (not bad, just worse). Of course, I haven't stepped into every community college classroom. But this is the psychology of the people looking at your application.

Technically technically, what actually matters is all the things that go along with going to a cheaper school, not really the fact that it's cheap.

2. "The rigor was pretty good" - does that mean you kept taking math classes (real analysis, etc)? If not, then how can you make that claim?

The OP was asking for an engineering degree; there the math is powerful support but only support.

Sure, the first two years at Harvard can be something special, especially if the student uses AP or tests out of the standard first two years of ugrad school. E.g., Harvard's Math 55 taught to freshmen at least at one time used Halmos, FDVS, Rudin's 'Principles', and Spivak's 'Manifolds'. That's usually junior or senior level stuff.

I know one guy who went to Harvard and as a sophomore took a reading course from A. Gleason. So, if in the next two years he knocked off one of Hilbert's problems, like Gleason did, then he could also become a Harvard 'Fellow' and skip a Ph.D.! But, again, we're talking engineering, not being so advanced as a ugrad that really should end up with a Ph.D. in math instead of a Bachelor's.

What's so wrong about just taking the first two years of college as just the usual first two years? A CC can provide that. A CC can use a good calculus book; when I took calculus, I used the same book Harvard used; that is, Harvard was willing to teach a calculus course, just calculus from just a common book, to I don't know who took it. Given the book and anything like a competent CC teacher, the Harvard course doesn't have much room to be better than a CC course, especially if the student followed my recommendations on self study before the course.

I know; I know; maybe the freshman English lit course at Harvard is taught by a Nobel prize winner in literature and can provide some astoundingly profound insights into Henry James and, thus, change the lives of the students. I'm not impressed.

You seem eager to "pay a lot" for the first two years of college.

I'm not sure about "cheaper schooling, lower quality". In engineering and computer science there are state schools that compete, IMO, pretty handily with "the best". you might snigger and scoff, but hiring managers at good companies don't.

also, if you start your degree at a CC and transfer to a 4 year to finish, what does it says on your diploma? exactly what it would say if you went there for four years. I wouldn't recommend keeping secrets about your life, but if no one asks...

I did keep taking math classes! I have a math minor.

yeah, so, I was rushing. I edited the previous post: what matters is all the things that go along with cheaper schooling, not that fact that it's cheap.

Sounds that it is a lot about credentials. Sadly enough it is. My experience with my education in industrial engineering at "university of applied sciences" in germany (whatever that would be in the US...) was rather good even when compared to the big names around here as far as knowldge is concerned. Yet, the fact remained that it wasn't a big name.

A graduate school will be eager to forgive the first two years in a community college given what else I assumed: A four year college for the last two years, glowing recommendations from professors, and excellent GRE scores.

That a guy started at a community college and ended up with excellent GRE scores is an impressive 'trajectory', and mostly good graduate schools will be sufficiently impressed. The graduate schools are hungry for highly motivated, good students and will want to grab what I described.

I reread this branch and thought it sounded awful. What I meant to say is that if you optimize for low cost, you're limiting your choices to schools that lack the reputation. I don't know very many schools that have both (maybe some state schools). And yeah, this results in having a burden to defend yourself.

I wish I could delete the rest of this branch.

In the job market, reputation of your undergrad generally doesn't much doesn't matter after the first 5 years. Multiple studies show that students from different schooling backgrounds reach employment parity in most every situation.

Anecdotally, in my own case, I hit employment parity with my Ivy League/Top-10 school peers at 6 years, and have long since surpassed most of them in the job market and standard of living (due to an unbelievably smaller debt load).

The only people I know from my starting peer group who I could comfortably say have a higher standard of living than I do also went to regular 'ol state schools but just worked harder/smarter than I did.

I get fairly regular recruitment pitches from the Google's, Amazon's and Facebook's, and have worked for some of the biggest and best companies in their industries. (I've noticed an uptick in Google courtships over the last couple years as they finally brought their data crunching prowress to analyze hiring success and found that their traditional hiring pools did not necessarily provide the best employees)

All that being said, if I were so inclined, there are positions (high end consulting, finance, high-level politics) that I'm less likely to ever end up in due to fierce protectionism by "old guard". But I'm finding those hard kernels of school fashionistas are rapidly disappearing now as well.

Nice discussion, at least for me. So don't worry. Because you're right, having a big name like MIT on your CV opens doors that otherwise keep closed. That doesn't necessarily mean the education is really better, but the fact remains.

On the other hand, if you don't have the money there are not a lot of opportunities left. And I for my part prefer some who showed that kind of ambition over everyone else who hand it "the easy way" (not meaning an MIT degree is easy at all, just saying there are roads with more rocks than others).