Junior College: Duluth (MN) Junior College

Date Established: 1927

Date Closed:

Location: Duluth, Minnesota

Historical Highlights:

Duluth Junior College was at a relative disadvantage compared to most other public junior colleges, in that it faced stiff competition for students from a state-supported normal school also located in Duluth. This competition in part explains why, in 1937, Duluth JC enrolled fewer students (413) than Minnesota's Hibbing Junior College (423).

Adding to Duluth JC's competitive disadvantage was the fact that it, unlike the state normal school, levied a substantial tuition charge on its in-district students. In 1930, in fact, the tuition set by the Duluth school board for the junior college provoked something of a local controversy that very nearly led to the junior college's closure. That year, the school board, forced to cope with the full impact of the Great Depression, imposed an annual tuition of $200, by far the highest in the state and nearly the highest in the nation for a public junior college. The Duluth Herald immediately attacked this "snobbish" action, predicting that it would render the junior college "available only to the children of the well-to-do." For 1931, the Duluth school board reduced the junior college's tuition to $100, both in response to the public criticism it had received and to the fact that some high school graduates simply registered as tuition-free postgraduates in the Duluth high schools (a common practice in many Midwestern states at this time) rather than as junior college students, resulting in a severe enrollment decline at the junior college and a significant loss of anticipated revenue for the school board.

Sources:

"Duluth Junior College," Junior College Journal 2, no. 1 (1931): 40 and R.D. Chadwick, "Public Junior Colleges of Minnesota," Junior College Journal 3, no. 7 (1934): 347.