Community college, or as my beloved community college classmates liked to call it, “glorified high school.” Whatever you call it, community college is an irreplaceable experience that every student pursuing higher education should experience. Yup, every student pursuing higher ed, and here’s why.

Community college is a great way for students to get ahead of the curve—or perhaps at this point, keep up with the curve as more and more students enter college with college credits—and save money on their higher education experience. College is crazy expensive, there are just no two ways about it, and if you can take one or two dozen credits at a community college you can save yourself a year of schooling, or more, at a four-year institution.

“But college is a special time of your life! Why would you not want to spend all four years at the college of your dreams?” I can hear well-meaning parents saying. First of all, why would you not want to save 20 to 60 grand by picking up some credits at a community college? Secondly, transferring into a four-year college a semester or a year ahead than your peers because you went to community college is not a bad thing, despite what some people may say about the college experience. Finally, who’s to say that “the college of your dreams” can’t be a community college?

Believe it or not, you can transfer into a four-year school from a community college and still have the same amazing experience that those freshmen are. Actually, you’ll have an even better experience, because you won’t be scrambling to figure out what the college workload demands of you—you’ll know exactly how to manage the college system from your experience at a community college.

If you attended a small or secluded high school, or are planning to attend a college that is similar to your high school atmosphere in terms of location, size, religious affiliation, or school type (private, charter, etc.), attending a community college is a really smart idea. Community college is what I like to call an uncensored experience. You really do get a taste of everything at a community college, and I’m not just talking about the classes you can take.

At a community college, you’ll meet every kind of person, whether they be student, professor, or faculty. You’ll work with students who are pursuing associates degrees and students who are planning to go to Med School. You’ll have professors that you’ll love and professors that you’ll love to hate, and you’ll likely list the faculty from most to least efficient so you know who to talk to when you really want something done. And that doesn’t even begin to cover all the “extra-curricular” activities you’ll be exposed to.

Attending community college teaches you how to navigate life, which is not to say that attending a four-year school doesn’t, because it certainly does, but community college offers you a unique environment in which to express yourself and view the expression of others which you may not experience at a specialized university. It will push you outside of your comfort zone in more ways than one and better prepare you to appreciate your future education.

I transferred into the four-year school I am currently attending from a community college, and I brought my whole freshman years’ worth of college credits with me. Before I even started at Roberts Wesleyan—the college I attend now—I had my whole freshman year and 90 percent of my general education courses behind me and was on track to graduate in three years. Now, having just finished my sophomore year of college at Roberts, I can say with 100% certainty that if I had to go back and do things all over again, I would do them exactly the same.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the college I’m at right now, but as a four-year Christian university, it is very different from the community college, GCC, that I attended. Sure, at Roberts we still have a diverse array of students, but it’s a different kind of diversity, and the atmosphere certainly isn’t as raw or real as the atmosphere at GCC, where high school students, moms, Muslims, Pagans, and stoners all sit next to each other openly in one gen ed or another.

Every student should attend a community college; there are so many benefits, financially and otherwise, but one of the best is that you really end up having two “dream schools.” Even after completing a year of classes full time at a four-year college, I would still say that some of my best professors reside at the community college I left almost a year ago, because they prepared me to attend the school I am at now and shaped me into the student that I am today.