Community Colleges: The Literature of the Two-Year College

ing something of the growth of this remarkable institution. It was William Rainey Harper who, in 1900, coined the term college, describing a separate segment of after-high school education offering essentially traditional freshmansophomore courses. At this time, there were only eight such colleges serving a total of 100 students. All were private. The first public junior college was established in Joliet, Illinois, in 1901. By the early 1950s there were over 600 two-year colleges, more than half of them public, offering mostly lower-division college courses and serving largely as transfer sources or weeding out stations for four-year institutions. However, during this period, especially in the public colleges, there was a modest but steady growth of vocational and career-oriented pro-