I believe courses are $84/hr where I work. Depending on the class, books will run you about $100-$200. Math and science books tend to be expensive, on the order of $150 for a calculus, physics, or chemistry book. Your philosophy courses on the other hand may call for books that you can find in the philosophy aisle of your local Borders or Barnes and Noble for $20 or so, but might require five books. So generally speaking, $100 per class for books is a fairly solid estimate.
That means that a four hour college algebra course costs a student about $450 when all is said and done. Now, I'm in St. Louis. If you head about twenty miles west on U.S. Interstate 44, I think the community college for that region has lower tuition rates. If you went to Los Angeles or New York City, you would be looking at higher tuition costs.
The expensive math and science books aren't quite as bad as they sound. I did three semesters of calculus with the same book, which came out to $50 per class for books. They were five hour classes, so it comes out to $10 per credit hour for books. Comparing that to my philosophy class, which was a three hour course that came out to $30ish on books per credit hour. If you're doing a technical program, like a CCNA or trying to pick up AutoCAD, you may be looking at classes where one book takes care of you for two semesters.
An associate's degree from St. Louis Community College is 65 hours. Assuming my $84/hr figure is correct (it's been a while, so I might be off by a few dollars), you come out to $5460 in tuition costs. That's not counting books. We roll parking costs into tuition, so books are the only other cost associated. I just can't give you a solid figure for how much books will cost, but when all is said and done, you're looking at around $7000 for a standard two-year associate's degree. It'll transfer just about anywhere in the country that the student wants to go, if they decide to go on to a bachelor's program, and they're a junior when they arrive at a four-year school.
Raltar quoted you $50,000 for a bachelor's degree from ITT. That means it cost around $25,000 to do two years there. Compare that to $7000 at a community college.
Anybody we graduate is eligible for a transfer scholarship to any University of Missouri school. I'm not sure what the specifics are regarding GPA and how much scholarship money they receive, but there is a scholarship just for graduating from our school and going to a state university. Community colleges across the country tend to make deals like that with four-year universities. I know our nursing program sends students to work in local hospitals as part of their coursework.
I don't know what the specifics are going to be like in your neck of the woods, but there's what my local community college does. Yours ought to have all manner of adult education programs ranging from GED courses to two-year professional certifications and general college courses to transfer to a four-year school. Anything that ITT is offering, they're going to have at your community college. I'll come back later and get to math and science requirements for stuff like AutoCAD and CCNA programs.
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