Pasadena City College

Date: Apr 27 2010
Major: Business - Management and Administration (This Major's Salary over time)
I am actually a parent of a student who is ending her sophomore year at PCC.

My son is, my eyes, a hard working, hard-driven kid, with average intelligence. His SAT scores were quite average. At the end of his HS senior year, he had various choices of colleges. He was accepted to one UC campus, to some CSU choices, and to several private schools ? none of which was an Ivy League school.

From the beginning, we curtailed the option of a private school. We are middle income family, too rich to get any financial assistance, and too poor to ignore the financial burden. And he did not show a great motivation to solicit scholarship on his own. So our rule was made clear: If it is not an Ivy League, a mediocre private school is not worth the investment and would imposed an unduly financial burden which we were not ready to assume; nor were we ready to allow him to finish school in debt up to his eyeballs.

The one UC campus to which he was accepted had very little appeal to him. All of the CSU choices were still available, but he decided to go to PCC with the hope of having a second chance.

He is finishing his second year at PCC. He has already been accepted to four of the best UC schools: UCLA, UCSD, UCSB, and UCD. We are still waiting to hear from Berkley. This was an amazing investment. Our son had a second chance to get into some of the greatest schools, and we save a ton of money.

Do your math.