I too taught in the Wisconsin system, at MATC in Madison, back when I was ABD and a recent PhD. Forgive me, I am not trying to put down the instructors at these schools, but the difference is that while some of the professors teaching 100 and 200 level courses in the 2-year schools could have done a good or excellent job in hypothetical 300 and 400 level courses, most could not. Out of ca 30 social science faculty I taught with, maybe 2 even knew recent (or not so recent) theoretical developments or case studies, and 10 were regularly teaching courses outside their disciplines, as only 12 graduate credits, or one semester’s worth, were required by say, an historian, in order for them to teach political science or sociology in the ‘college parallel track’. Just because they are not called CCs does not make the substantively different.

The car analogy is bogus. Both cars will get you there, but they don’t shape who you are as an intellect. Your school does. The level of courses taught at 2 year schools is basic, so they can be considered to be equivalent – sometimes – while the coursework that will put you in a profession or grad school is not something you drive, park and walk away from. While some people go to Madison to just ‘enter the workforce’ many are really ambitious. If they want to get 100 and 200 level courses from a research faculty and pay for it they should. In my former dept. all introductory courses were taught by both ‘famous’, established faculty and by Asst and Assoc level solid/excellent faculty. The student is getting a different product. My understanding was that this was a policy of the the university, as a public institution/land grant school, to expose all students to the brilliant faculty there – and for gods sake don’t try to say Madison does not have a brilliant faculty in just about every dept and program!

Having been both a TA and instructor at UW itself, pretty much at the same time I taught at MATC, I assure you that upper division courses at Madison are not anything like the huge lower level survey courses, that are indeed similar to 100 level courses at the 2-year school. Yes there were a couple of lousy professors in each dept, but generally at the 300 level, and especially the 400 level in the social sciences anyway, lectures lessen and seminars take over, and class size drops way down, reading and discussion went way up, and the appropriate-level teaching of advanced theoretical ideas, preparing students for grad school in their disciplines is stressed. Student also often began attending graduate courses for undergraduate credit.

You Jim, may be up to the task of teaching such courses, but after teaching for 2 years ABD and 1 year PhD at MATC, there is no WAY that 98% of my colleagues could have taught anything even remotely like these courses, and their ‘version’ of intro courses were NOT the same as the ones I TAd for at UW. Of course, with many PhDs finding little work in the 4 year market, many bright people take 2 year school jobs. While at first they of course are ‘current’, after 20 years of that grind, they may be fabulous teachers and inspire many students, but they are usually not ready to leap into the latest literature that the kids need NOW, to be competitive for grad school NOW, it is hard enough for research faculty to keep up with, so I see no reason why each type of institution in the WI or any system should not be ‘valued’ monetarily or ideologically in a different way.

What I can say is that because of the ‘articulation’ policy, the quality of students in the college transfer programs was very high -as high or higher than that of students at UW itself. They were awesome and I was privileged to teach them. My first job at a private college was a disappointment. BUT – that was because they had a guarantee of admission to UW only if their grades were high. Without that, I don’t think it would have been so impressive a group.

And don’t tell me about ‘deadwood’ faculty at the ‘big’ school making it some kind of overrated fraud. It is just not true. They even have deadwood at Harvard, while more recently minted faculty even at ‘lesser’ schools are usually pretty concerned with doing a decent job for tenure/promotion, or getting a different job somewhere else. You can’t on a general level (although maybe in individual cases) compare the faculty at the flagship campus of the WI system with any 2 year school. Conversely a lot of the 2 year faculty I worked with were weird, mean, sometimes just dumb people. So in the end, in terms of what they offer students as mentors, it is all equal.

Finally, Wisconsin in only unique in that they don’t call their schools community colleges. MATC is ‘Madison Area Technical College’ – big deal. The ’2-year’ schools in Wisconsin also almost all have a ‘vocational track’ as well as college parallel, where welding and food service are taught, and in the New York system where I currently teach at the ‘flagship’ campus, we take about 100% of all transfer courses from SUNY community college ‘academic tracks’ too. There is a similar articulation agreement, and I’m sure that is the case in many systems. Their diploma also only shows the ‘main’ campus. We are happy the students can do the basic groundwork courses and save money at the CC, then come to either a 4 year college or graduate institution for the remainder of their BA to get exposure to people whose tenure and promotion depends on being current. But I would never advise a student AGAINST spending their money at the main campus simply due to the fact that it costs more. If they are impoverished, shy, fearful, OK, but not because it is equivalent and you might as well save money.

I have a friend who has taught long term at the CC, and ‘brags’ jokingly that although she still tries to do research, the ‘benefit’ of a CC is that you don’t have to publish anything and you can stop reading very much. She is kidding of course, few human beings could possibly sustain the workload she does for more than a short while and still continue to perform as researcher/scholar/teachers. She took the job 15 years ago with the intent of continuing research ‘no matter what’ but it is nearly impossible, teaching 5 huge courses a semester, to do that.

I think you answered your own question by pushing the fact that the degree will say Madison. People need to stop looking at college as just an expense. It’s an investment and quality does matter. The learning experience matters. Will a student be an agile, lif-long learner because of the quality of his or her experiences in college or are they just getting a degree? Value is subjective.