An analysis of the public junior college movement in Texas, 1922-1973

The purpose of the study was to analyze the history of the public junior college movement in Texas. Its intent was to trace the development and expansion of the public junior college movement during the fifty-one year period between 1922 and 1973. Such developments included the growth in number of colleges and enrollments, financial support, curriculum, accreditation, organization and control, legislation directed at the junior colleges, and legal procedures for establishment of public junior college districts. The findings were organized into nine chapters. One chapter traces the emergence of the concept of the junior college from the second half of the nineteenth century and includes the development of the public junior college movement in the state of California. Another chapter is devoted to analyzing the private junior college movement in Texas which preceded the public junior colleges by some twenty-five years. The public junior college movement was analyzed in each of the five definable eras of development which were: The Public Junior College Movement Without Legislative Recognition, 1922-1928; The Period of Development Following Legislative Recognition, 1929-1940; The Period of Initial State Aid to Junior Colleges, 1941-1950; A Period of Challenge, 1951-1963; The Emergent Era, 1964-1973. Data for this study was widely scattered throughout the state and was researched from a variety of sources. It was obtained from laws enacted by the Texas legislature pertaining to the public junior colleges, court decisions affecting the public junior colleges, institutional records, records of the various professional organizations and the state agencies, books on the junior college, related doctoral studies, histories of education and educators, interviews with both past and present leaders of the junior college movement in Texas, related master's studies on individual institutions, letters and correspondence, professional journals, and newspapers. The first public junior college established in Texas was Wichita Falls Junior College in 1922. During the six years between 1922 and 1928, a total of sixteen public junior colleges were created as units of the public school systems without legal status. The study traces the growth in number of junior college districts created through the academic year 1973-74 in which forty-seven junior college districts with fifty-two campuses were in operation in Texas. Curriculum offerings during the formative years in the public junior college movement were strictly directed toward the students who were planning to transfer to a four-year senior institution. The study covers the curriculum development during the fifty-one year history that resulted in the junior colleges providing not only university parallel or college transfer programs, but emphasized the development of technical-occupational and continuing education programs. This was evident in the fact that ninety-five different technical-occupational programs were being offered in the forty-seven public junior college districts in 1973. From 1922 to 1928, the only source of financial support available to the public junior colleges came from tuition charged to students. In 1929, legislative authority was granted to levy and collect a special junior college tax in each district, and from 1929 to 1940 local taxation and tuition income supported the junior college programs. In 1941, the Texas legislature enacted the first state appropriation to aid junior colleges in the amount of $325,000. In the sixteen legislative sessions since 1941, the Texas legislature has continued to increase the [unior college appropriation, and in 1973-74 the amount appropriated totaled $94,712,526.