This is how I started my collegiate journey. I made enough money at my minimum wage job to pay for my entire community college's quarter's fees up front. It really helped me figure out how and where I wanted to pursue higher education.

Did my first two years there to get an associate's and then transferred to an in-state school where the tuition was a bit more expensive but much less than the average college student's.

I took an intro to philosophy course in community college where the professor was passionate about teaching it, and would happily play with ideas with students. We had 15 students in our course, and he'd sit us down and discuss our papers on the books and readings assigned for the course, and generally loved it. He had to - he wasn't being paid a lot for teaching at the community college, so it had to be a passion.

I had to take another intro to philosophy course at the university. There were 90 people in the course in a small lecture hall. We were assigned many of the same books and readings, but they weren't discussed in any detail or with any insight, our papers weren't carefully marked, and it felt like not even the professor cared as this was a course that checked a humanities requirement everyone had to take. The professor was tenured, and had to teach at least one course in addition to whatever else he did for the school (which wasn't clear to use as students).

I learned more for less at community college, and some of the readings and discussions we had still float into my mind sometimes. The only thing I remember about my university philosophy professor is that he'd sometimes pace at the front of the lecture hall with a baseball bat and when he made a point he thought was good he'd pretend he was hitting a home run with the bat.