A Halfway School for Losers?

This looks like it might be, as the phrase has it, a smart comedy: NBC’s   Community , coming for the 2009-2010 season. The show brings together an eclectic band of community college students, albeit thoroughly and more than likely unfairly stereotyped. From the NBC website:

It’s been said that community college is a “halfway school” for losers, a self esteem workshop for newly divorced housewives, and a place where old people go to keep their minds active as they circle the drain of eternity. Well, at Greendale Community College . . . that’s all true. Community focuses on a band of misfits, at the center of which is a fast-talkin’ lawyer whose degree has been revoked (Joel McHale, The Soup ). They form a study group and, in “Breakfast Club” fashion, end up learning a lot more about themselves than they do about their course work.

I doubt, though, it will bear much relationship to real-life community college experience. And if it has been said that community college is a “halfway school” for losers et. al., I don’t know who is saying it. Certainly nobody at my house would dare say that.

My wife is a community grad. When she decided to pursue a teaching degree, community college was not only a convenient option it was clearly the smartest. She received two years of college, essentially free thanks to grants, low tuition, and generous scholarships. And as her GPA became known, she also received admission offers from Cornell, Stanford, and some other impressive places I can’t remember.

When talking about community colleges, we’re speaking of 1,195 institutions that in any given semester enroll just under fifty percent of all America’s undergraduate students. For other revealing statistics, see here .