For students who want four-year degrees, junior college can either be a low-cost way to slash the sticker price of your education or an endless time and money suck that derails your master plan.

The anonymous personal finance blogger at Small Steps For Big Change, who is also a university professor, has some recommendations of how to make the junior college experience smooth and productive.

The advice includes deciding which four-year institution you want to attend after juco to make sure you know which classes will transfer and apply to your eventual degree. A talk with the department chair at that institution is also a good idea, and extremely helpful for fine-tuning your class selection at the juco.

I’ve had friends and family members who got stuck on junior college hamster wheels thanks to poor direction from either incompetent or unscrupulous teachers and counselors who recommended useless classes that served only to keep the students at the schools longer.

If you went to junior college and moved on to a university, what did you do to streamline the process?

How to do two years at a junior college (the right way) [Small Steps For Big Change]

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