Our courses are required to be the equal of the same courses taught at bigger state schools. Our tuition is considerably lower, class sizes are smaller, and no courses are taught by graduate assistants (at least, not where I teach).
You won't get the football team nor sororities/fraternities, but you can get a decent education. We have some vocational/technical courses, as well.
I would encourage anyone considering college to look at the community colleges, and to consider taking every possible course at that level, using as little borrowed money as possible.
Many colleges are getting wise to doing your rhetoric at community college.
My neighbor was telling me that his daughter was going to do that, get all the rhetoric and basic classes out of the way, but found that almost no colleges will now accept those classes.
They want ALL yer money, and are giving kids a real hard time when they go to finish their grad work, by making them retake all the basic stuff, or so he was telling me.