One thing to remember when talking about the "big name" colleges vs the local community colleges is that the professors at the big name 4 year places are not evaluated on how well they teach their students in class, but only on their ability to write acedemic research papers (publish or perish) and in securing government research grant funds for their college. So the profs mostly see teaching undergraduate students as a big waste of their time and do not put any effort into teaching. Community colleges for the most part don't do research, so the profs there have teaching students as their only job. And thus they put forth much effort in teaching.
