Before and after: Community/junior colleges and graduate/professional schools
The number of students enrolled in higher education grew exponentially during the
early/mid twentieth century. As a result, different types of institutions began to emerge
and the curriculum became more specialized. (We will talk about how these factors are
reflective of Progressive Era developments during class.) Thelin takes up some of the
themes we discussed last week, namely how the newly diversified student body
experienced college. Brint and Karabel examine the growth of community/junior
colleges while Labaree examines the growth of teacher’s colleges—two entities with
dubious status in the hierarchy of higher education. Community colleges can be
considered as either a democratizing initiative that opened higher education to the masses
or the perfect place to justify the pre-existing social/economic hierarchy. And, every
politician talks about how important teachers are, but teachers enjoy low status when
compared with other specialized professions.
The President’s Commission Report, published in 1947, is a reaction to the explosion in
enrollment numbers and is an attempt to articulate a specific purpose of higher education
in a democracy. Though published in the middle of the twentieth century, we can use it
to understand the debates that were going on in the early part of the century and the
secondary sources for today.
As you are doing the reading, think about these questions:
 What is ‘status,’ and how is it granted/determined? (think about this in terms of
teacher education and community/junior colleges)
 How does the purpose of higher education, as we’ve defined it, fit with the
discussion of community colleges?
 What do you make of Labaree’s assessment of the status of teacher education?
 Does equal educational opportunity mean the same educational opportunity?