@PABaseball posted:95% of the time HA means hard to get into. HA means you're more likely to be surrounded by a more motivated student body, a more career oriented student. It usually means you have access to more decorated faculty with better facilities. HA does not necessarily mean you're getting a better education.
Numbers aren't different at Harvard and Chipola. I don't care how much harder it is perceived to be, formulas and equations don't change for HA schools. Physics is physics. The rigor of a course is going to be professor dependent. If you want to make a case that the are more strict and rigorous professors at what is considered an elite school - fine. But physics do not change for anybody. Saying physics is harder for HA student than Juco student is really narrow minded. Odds are very strong they use the same exact textbook. You take a student who is struggling in Stats at a HA school, he doesn't magically understand the concept at a juco.
English Comp 1 is English Comp 1 at both schools. It's not like they're writing best selling novels at the elite school and reading Dr. Suess at the two year.
If a decorated Calc professor leaves UPenn and goes to Temple, does Temple now become a HA school or does the professor have to dumb it down for the Temple kids?
There are exceptions to every rule....But to put this in baseball terms Tim Lincecum was 5'11" 170lbs so while you don't *need* to be a large human to be a MLB baseball pitcher, you are way more likely to go further as a large human.
Putting aside labs, research, facilities, etc, you'll still have a difference in the quality of the faculty. Even if it's just compensation. You could probably argue that faculty that are more highly compensated are probably motivated todo a better job. Of course there are exceptions, and corner cases.