At any college, you get out of it what you put in to it. You can take the path of least resistance and slide through learning almost nothing at a community college, or at a major university. If you want to learn, though, a community college can provide the best value (learning for cost) for almost anyone.
Here's why. First, full time teachers at community colleges want to _teach_ their subject. They have minimal other duties. They are hired because they can teach well, and that is what they are evaluated for. (Part time teachers are a mixed bag. Some are excellent and some are lousy. This is true at both 2 and 4+ year institutions.) Full time teachers at universities are usually hired for their research. Teaching ability or desire is not necessary. They have significant other duties.
Second, class sizes at a community college are small. Introductory classes typically run about 20 students per class, rather than the hundreds per class in a public, 4-year university. (I teach physics at a very large community college; I went to grad school at a major state university. In the introductory class here, my class cap is 24 students. The same course at the university consistently enrolled 3000+ students, more than 100 times as many.) If you want to talk to your instructor, it is much easier with smaller classes. If you want to avoid your instructor, of course, it is much easier if there are 3000 other students in the class.
Third, at a community college, your instructors may not be big names in the field, but they'll actually be the ones teaching you. At my institution, about half of the faculty have Ph.D.s (mostly in their teaching field, but a few in education or CC administration); the rest have master's degrees (except a few in programs like welding). At a big university, the professor, with a Ph.D., may (or may not) give the lectures, but recitations, labs, and homework grading will likely be done by TA's - that is, people with a bachelor's degree, usually in the field they are teaching, but not always. They often have less of a grasp of things that we'd like.
Fourth, the content of courses at community colleges is exactly the same as at 4-year institutions. The courses are articulated for transfer, so that everyone knows exactly what is covered in each course. We are right in the middle of a big, state-wide audit of all transfer courses at all institutions (2 and 4 year); it is lots of fun paperwork.
Fifth, community colleges are a lot cheaper than four year schools. Public institutions in our area charge about five times as much per credit hour; local private institutions charge up to 12 times as much, last I looked. Here, the state also pays community college tuition for students with really good high school grades, making us an even better deal.
We get an (undeserved) bad rap for our graduation rates because we have to count students who transfer successfully without a degree as students who drop out. (Students in science and engineering who want an AS degree but also want to take the necessary introductory classes for their major need about 80 semester hours before they leave; only 60 will transfer. Consequently, they usually just take the required introductory classes and then transfer. We have to count them as our failures.) Also, we have to count students who come to take a couple of classes for personal reasons, but who never wanted a degree, as students who drop out. (In this category, we have retired people who want to take a gardening class and teachers who want to pick up a class or two to get an endorsement on their teaching certificate.)
Here, at least, we make a big effort to make clear to our students what degrees they need for what jobs, and what sort of pay they can look forward to. For students who are not in transfer programs, we have lots of industry ties, and the college works closely to make sure that students get what they need and that the students know what they are getting into. Many of our students still don't really understand how school works and what they can expect, both during and after, so we work hard to help them. For-profit schools are a totally different ball of wax, and they encourage unrealistic thinking so as to suck the maximum amount of money out of the student and system.
