Should I mention CC in my story for IB interviews?

I attended CC after my father passed away my senior year of high school, leaving family in debt by over $1 Million. I was left with literally nothing when it was all said & done, which led me to switch up my game-plan from attending USC. CC was the best choice financially for supporting my mother who couldn't make ends meet after his passing as I worked a part-time job while working at a couple internships along the way. I believe I have a compelling story for why I went and everything I did there to get my semi-target/target school I'm at now.

Yet, I leave CC off my resume after seeing many recommend it on WSO due to the bad perception many working in the industry perceive it as. I've had a couple OCR interviews so far with some coming up & I'm conflicted as whether to mention it in my story during interviews or to just gloss over and focus more on my work experience.

Almost every company requests for transcripts, so HR can see that I attended CC if they looked at it, but I doubt that information gets transferred over to the interviewers.

TL;DR: Should I mention my time at CC for a couple minutes during the 'story' part of the interview or leave it off & focus on my work experience primarily. I could just wait to see if they bring it up & I'll be more than ready to explain why, but it feels a little dishonest to not mention it at all during the story.