SOURCE

Prall, Charles E., "Report of the Junior College Survey Committee," The Journal of Arkansas Education (November, 1930): 18-23.

INTERPRETATION

The impression often given in the junior college advocacy literature is that a community's decision to establish a junior college was more the result of unreasoned enthusiasm or some vague Jacksonian impulse to extent "democratic access" to higher education than of a serious, calculated assessment of its capacity to organize and finance a credible institution. In fact, as the study reprinted below demonstrates, even the most ardent junior college advocates -- including California's Wood -- were extremely pragmatic in their assessment of any community's ability to establish and support a public junior colege. By 1930, it was well known that a public junior college's enrollment was essentially a function of the enrollment of its sponsoring high school, just as the ability of a sponsoring community to finance a junior college was a function of its property tax assessment and permissable millage. As Prall's committee argues, any community with a small high school and relatively low tax base simply had not business establishing a junior college -- the effort was doomed to failure. Indeed. as the 1930's progressed, state legislatures adopted junior college acts that effectively precluded the establishment of marginal junior colleges by stipulating some combination of minimum high school enrollment and tax base as a precondition for a local referendum on the organizaiton of a junior college. Such legislation, in combination with the decline in property assessments that came with the onset of the Great Depression, effectively ended the rapid increase in the number of public junior colleges that had taken place during the mid-1920s, and a second wave of junior colleges would have to wait until the early 1960s and the advent of regional junior colleges (as in Illinois), the take-over of local junior colleges by state governments (as in Minnesota) and the introduction of state aid programs (as in Texas).

TEXT

[p. 18]

Part 1: Financial Obligations Involved in the Establishment of Junior Colleges.

The Survey Committee has been entrusted with the task of determining the feasibility of the public or school district junior college in Arkansas. It has not considered its function to involve a survey of higher education in the state with a view to determining whether we were adequately supplied with institutions of college grade. Neither does its work include the determination of the feasibility of state, county, or union district junior colleges for Arkansas. It has devoted its entire time to the consideration of the single district junior college, and has tried to bring into the foreground certain issues and considerations which should receive the attention of communities that are contemplating the establishment of a junior college. Among the first of these questions is the problem of financial support.

In the early years of the junior college movement, there were two well defined opinions as to the school district's necessary financial obligation or outlay in connection with this undertaking. One group maintained that the junior college could be made entirely self supporting, while the other predicted that the average per pupil cost would approximate $300 per annum. The latter estimate implied, of course, that a large proportion of this sum would have to be supplied from sources other than tuition. Experience with the public junior college under varied conditions has shown the inaccuracy of each of these estimates. Few public junior colleges ever approach the point of self-support even though they are given free space in a building occupied by another unit of the system. On the other hand, the rank and file of public junior colleges that have been established have been able to operate at aper pupil cost considerably below $300 per year, if the overhead costs of housing are not considered

By implication, at least, there are abundant evidences that a junior college cannot be expected to be self supporting. In the states which deal legally with the establishment of the junior college, there are many provisions for financial support over and above the possible receipts from tuition. In California and Missouri the local boards are required to make an estimate of the increased expense of the proposed junior college, and submit it with application f or authorization. State aid is given in California in the amount of $2,000 to every junior college district plus $100 for every student in average daily attendance. Missouri gives no aid, but requires that: "Provision should be made for approximately $8,000, for the payment of teachers, and the necessary incidental expenses for the first year, and approximately $15,000 for each year thereafter." The state laws of Missouri and Minnesota provide that the costs of junior college courses in excess of regular funds available may be covered by tuition to be charged by the district board. The junior college legislation in Kansas provides that in addition to the regular levy, a tax not exceeding two mills in first and second class cities may be made for junior college maintenance, either wholly or in part. These legislative measures furnish abundant evidence that not even the friends of the movement are now convinced that the junior college should or can be entirely self-supporting.

In addition, the North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools enforces the following standard for accrediting public junior colleges:

Finances: The minimum annual operation income for the educational program of the junior college should be at least $20,000, of which not less than $10.000 should be derived from stable sources other than students' fees. such as public support, permanent endowments, etc.

Among the studies of junior college costs, the most accurate and comprehensive has been contributed by Earl Johnson of the University of Indiana. (1)

This investigation was based upon data collected by personal. visits to thirty school districts supporting public junior colleges in the six states: Iowa, Illinois, Kansas. Missouri, Michigan, and Minnesota. The enrollments in the two year junior colleges ranged from 45 to 702, with a median size of 112. This figure was almost identical with the median size of the 146 public junior colleges reported in the United States for the same year, 1927-28.

The junior college, as treated in this study, was an institution quite similar to the regular high school in curricular offering, housing conditions, and administration. Seldom was it housed on a separate floor or in a separate wing of the building. In fact, many of the smaller colleges, and a few of the larger ones had the recitation rooms so distributed over the entire building, that it seemed to destroy the atmosphere of distinction that a college of this type ought to have, and which most standardizing agencies require.

Perhaps fifteen of the thirty institutions had sufficient college characteristics to give them the atmosphere of an institution definitely superior to the regular high school. Privileges were granted and functions fostered, which were not common to the regular high school students. Effort was manifested to make the students feel that they were in an [p. 19] institution more advanced than the high school.

Only one junior college was housed as a separate institution, the other twenty-nine were housed with the regular high school or with some other unit of the public school system. Since such integration involved dual use, some method of allocation of expenditures was necessarily devised. The general method of allocation followed that of Dr. Koos in his study. All items which were classified on the disbursement registers as a definite expenditure for the junior college were charged directly to the junior college, after verification had been made by the secretary or teachers that the expenditure had been made for the junior college. Such services as general administration, heat, light, water, janitor service, instruction, instructional supplies, maintenance of building, and general auxiliaries, whenever shared, were allocated on a uniform basis throughout the study. Amounts spent for fixed charges, debt service, capital outlay were not apportioned to the junior college.

In 17 of the 19 systems where a tuition charge was made for resident students, the per capita junior college costs were higher than the established fees. One system collected more than its per capita costs by charging tuition fees of $260 per year, while the other system which was self supporting offered only a year of junior college work. The median excess of per capita costs over tuition rates was $42 per pupil per year, while the average excess was $72 per pupil per year.

Unfortunately, Johnson's per capita costs of these junior colleges cannot be taken as predictions of the cost of similar enterprises in our own state because of the differences in salary and price levels that may obtain. Then too, in these states larger amounts of money are available for both secondary and junior college education than now obtain in Arkansas cities of comparable size. We must, therefore, make an adjustment of his per capita cost figures before applying them directly to the determination of junior college costs in Arkansas. Fortunately for our problem, his study sets forth very carefully the per capita cost relationship between the junior college and the high school of the same system. Since we can easily obtain the per capita cost of high school education in our own state, we may predict the probable cost of junior colleges in Arkansas from the relationship obtaining between the costs in these two educational units in the cities studied by Johnson. Obviously, this technique is based upon the assumption that the cost relationship between secondary education and junior college education is approximately the same at different regional levels of salaries and expenditures. Such errors as may exist in this assumption may be determined as we proceed.

Table 1 includes only those systems in Johnson's study, where the junior college was maintained as a two-year institution. It also excludes systems with very large high schools and systems with excessive high school costs. These refinements have been made to secure schools of sizes comparable to such Arkansas cities as might be interested in establishing junior colleges. The tabulation is in the ascending order of high school enrollment. (See last column).

From these data it follows that the best prediction of junior college costs in Arkansas would be secured by applying this 170% ratio to the per capita high school cost obtaining in the typical Arkansas city which would be interested in establishing a junior college. In small junior colleges a safer ratio would be 180%, while circumstances might easily force the costs to the 200% index.

Table 2 contains information similar to that in Table 1 except that it is restricted to systems in Johnson's study in which per capita high school costs are very high for the states in which the investigation was conducted. Even here with per capita high school costs approximating $225 per year, the per capita junior college costs in the same cities are on the average 40% higher. Comparing this index with the one obtained in Table 1 raises the question of the soundness of our assumption that the cost relationship between secondary education and junior college education would be approximately the same at different general levels of expenditure. Obviously, [p. 20] the rate of increase in per capita cost of junior

System	% which Jr. college per capita expenses is of high school per capita expense	Junior College Enrollment	Hours offered per semester in Jr. college	High School Expenditures per Capita Gr. 9-12	High School Enrollment   Gr. 9-12
13	109%	51	39	$119	221
18	138%	46	51	$94	233
14	181%	53	43	$104	331
8	174%	74	62	$101	417
11	216%	45	41	$91	439
23	172%	47	63	$188	505
5	138%	135	75	$96	549
4	128%	117	83	$92	675
2	193%	84	107	$170	701
14	168%	107	51	$98	934
27	118%	191	139	$137	1,348
25	199%	88	92	$148	1,481
Median or mid-case	170%	80	62	$102	527
Median for Junior college of less than 100	181%

System	% which Jr. college per capita expenses is of high school per capita expense	Junior College Enrollment	Hours offered per semester in Jr. college	High School Expenditures per Capita Gr. 9-12	High School Enrollment Gr. 9-12
20	145%	61	79	$221.82	340
24	121	101	73	228.23	741
22	115	149	101	237.09	968
29	192	107	105	223.94	1,012
21	133	277	190	266.09	1,505
1	212	191	111	211.69	1,947
Median	139

college education over secondary education would be greater as secondary costs decrease. Thus our index of 170% from Table 1, is apt to be low rather than high when applied to cost relationships which would obtain in these two units in Arkansas.

The per capita high school costs for the year 1929-30 in six of the eight largest cities in Arkansas have been carefully determined. In order of size of the senior high school, these cities are: Little Rock, Fort Smith, Pine Bluff, (2) Hot Springs, North Little Rock and Texarkana. The average number of students belonging to the senior high schools in these systems last year varied from 1876 in Little Rock, to 252 in Texarkana. The per capita costs in these systems based upon the number belonging ranged from $90.06 per year to $78.29, with a median of $87.

In calculating costs all expenditures for fixed charges, including insurance and taxes, debt service and capital outlay have been excluded. The only items considered have been general control, instructional expense, operating expense, maintenance, and auxiliary agencies. In most of the systems general control, maintenance and auxiliary agencies have been allocated to the senior high school on a per capita basis, using the average number belonging. Instructional expense and operating expenses have been secured directly from the charges against the senior high school.

If we apply our ratio of 170% from Table 1 to this central tendency of $87, we obtain estimated per capita junior colleges costs of $148 per pupil per year. The 200% ratio for small junior colleges might easily bring the per capita costs to the $175 mark. This range from $150 in round numbers to $175 per pupil per year is probably the best estimate for public junior college costs under prevailing Arkansas conditions and general levels of expenditure for teachers' salaries, materials of instruction, etc.

These estimates, of course, do not take into consideration any of the housing costs of the junior college except maintenance for buildings already built. It assumes that building space for the new unit is already available, and will not be needed for a period of years. Naturally, t h e outlay necessary for housing when the junior college enrollment outgrows the space reserved for it can hardly be predicted from these data.

It should be borne in mind also that we have made no effort to predict the cost of the so-called "effective" junior college. The cost relationships were obtained from junior colleges employing teachers with a background of experience in secondary education plus a master's degree. That the rank and file of the faculty were essentially high school teachers may be judged from the fact that in general there was less than $300 difference between the annual salaries of the junior college teachers, a n d the secondary teachers in these systems. Reference to Table 1 will also show that the curricula and offerings in many of these junior college were very much restricted. Three of the colleges have less than 12 hours of alternate or elective courses in the combined two years' offerings, while the offering ~n the median system provides less than twice the number of courses that the full-time student would take in his two years of residence. Without doubt, the curricula in these colleges were largely academic and scarcely wide enough to prepare for the various professions and occupations for which the various curricula of universities have been established. However, these shortcomings of the junior colleges in this investigation are typical of the rank and file of the public junior colleges that have been established in most of the states. In predicting costs it is safer to work from established institutional costs than from those which might exist if the movement had developed upon a higher level of collegiate offerings and standards.

The estimates on probable junior college per capita costs ir Arkansas presuppose the development of junior colleges in favorable sites and a judicious financial administration. Without each of these safeguards, per capita costs might easily exceed the $175,00 limit that has been suggested. Some economies of operation which could be affected by closer articulation between the secondary school and the junior college could be expected as a gradual development under far-sighted administrators. It would be unwise, however, to predict a lowering of per capita costs on this account, since such economies might be more than offset by a gradual raising of faculty standards, which, by the way, has been typical of most of our educational ventures.

Under our present system of taxation, most of the new financial obligations for the junior college will have to be met by securing increased valuations or increased tax rates upon present valuations. in view of these possibilities, it is suggested that each interested school administrator make a study of the trend of assessments of his district over a ten year period from which a pre. diction of future assessment trends may be made. Similar tabulation should be made for the tax rate and resulting receipts for all educational purposes for a like period. Like precaution should be taken to determine the district's bonded and floating indebtedness and their fluctuations in the last decade. Unless the financial status of the district seems to be moving toward a permanently healthy condition as evidenced by increasing valuations, a moderate assessment rate, a general lowering of floating indebtedness, and a carefully maintained program for decreasing bonded indebtedness, the consideration of the establishment of a junior college should be indefinitely postponed.

Part 2. Efficiency Standards Which Should Obtain in Elementary and in Secondary Divisions Before Establishing a Junior College.

Salary standards or levels which should be reached in both of these units of the school system were set forth in the preliminary report of the committee. (3) It will be recalled that these standards were based upon actual salary averages for Arkansas systems belonging to the North Central Association, using as the critical salary level in each division the average salary paid in the system ranking lowest in the first 20% of North Central cities.

The following cities of Arkansas ranked in the upper 20% of the North Central group when arranged in the order of salaries paid women high school teachers: Augusta, Blytheville, El Dorado, Ft. Smith, Helena, Hot Springs, Hulbert, Little Rock, Marion, Osceola, and Pine Bluff. (4)

The lowest average salary paid women high school teachers by any system in this group was $1,282.00 per year.

When the ranking was on the basis of the average salary paid elementary teachers, (5) the following systems constituted the highest 20%:

Blytheville, El Dorado, Fort Smith, Helena, Hulbert, Little Rock, Marianna, Marion, North Little Rock, Osceola, and Stuttgart.

The lowest average salary paid elementary teachers by any system above was $1;000.00 per year.

An effort has been made to add & third standard, the training of the elementary teacher. The Score Cards for Elementary Schools, which were prepared for each system in the state last year, gave information as to the total hours of college credit possessed by each elementary teacher in the state. The percentage of elementary teachers in a given system whose total hours of college credit equal or exceed two years of work (90 term hours) has been taken as a unit of comparison. On this basis, the following systems rank as the 20 highest in the North Central Group:

Camden, Clarendon, Crawfordsville, Forrest City, Fort Smith, Hulbert. Hot Springs, Magnolia, Malvern. Marianna, Marion, Morrilton, Osceola, Searcy, Stuttgart, Texarkana, and Wilson.

At the top of this group are six system that employed no elementary teacher with less than the specified credit, while at the lower limit of the group 80% with 90 or more term hours is the prevailing figure.

In the judgment of the committee, any city that is actively considering the establishment of a junior college should first raise its salary and teacher training standards to reach at least the minimum levels suggested above.

Part 3: Further Considerations in Deciding the Feasibility of Establishing a Junior College in a Given Location.

No Junior College Should Be Established Where the Enrollment is Likely to Fall Below 100 Students After the Second Year of Operation.

Data from two studies of enrollments in junior colleges show that with even a total enrollment of 100 students the second year, classes are likely to be too small for economical operation. A study of 15 public junior colleges in Texas (6) shows the numeber [sic] of 1927-28 junior college freshmen, who enrolled as sophomores in the same junior colleges in 1928-29. In only one institution did half of the freshmen enroll as sophomores in the following year, while the median system showed a sophomore enrollment of but 24% of the preceding year's freshmen. This study was based upon identical students and does not include sophomore transfers, and students out of school the previous year. In Johnson's study of 30 representative junior colleges (7), data were presented showing the relation between the sophomore enrollments in 1928-29, and the freshman enrollments in 1927-28. This differs from the Texas investigation in that identical students were not traced. The median percentage relationship between sophomores and freshmen in the 18 two-year colleges mentioned above was 55%. From these two studies, it is obvious that under average conditions a total junior college enrollment of 100 students will mean that not more than 33 students will be found in the sophomore class. To attempt to run a junior college with a still smaller enrollment means very limited sophomore offerings and exorbitant teaching costs.

The above minimum is below that which has been suggested by many authorities in the junior college field. Koos (8) maintains that the minimum enrollment should be at least 200, and Reeves (9) has suggested 300 as the most desirable minimum for economical operation. More recent studies have shown, however, that junior colleges with enrollments above 100 students may be economically maintained, if there is an accompanying restriction of curricula and course offerings. Such curricula, of course, could not be expected to meet the varied needs of all the high school graduates of even our smaller cities.

California has made provision by law, for the suspension of any public junior college, when its average daily attendance falls below 75 for any year after the second. According to Woods, (10) this is equivalent to an enrollment of in excess of 90 students. The Legislative Committee of the Colorado Education Association has set 150 students as the minimum standard for Colorado public junior colleges. (11) Missouri requires a minimum of 60 junior college students to be attained in the second year of operation, if the school is to be recognized, and approved.

[p. 22] Under average conditions an enrollment of 400 or more students in the Senior High School will be necessary to guarantee the minimum Junior College enrollment.

In Johnson's study, the eighteen junior college cities having high school enrollments below 200 showed a median ratio of junior college enrollment to high school enrollment of 14.5%. At this ratio, the high school enrollment would need to approximate 690 students to afford a junior college enrollment of 100 students. Since the high school figures in this study were based upon enrollments in grades 9 to 12, it is obvious that the estimated minimum of 400 students in grades 10 to 12 is none too high.

This does not mean that allowance has not been made for attendance of graduates of other high schools. The junior college enrollments in Johnson's study included students from outside the district, and the resulting proportion includes both local graduates and students from other systems. Of course, systems with locations favoring attendance from wide, adjacent areas might secure the desired minimum with a smaller high school specification than the one given above. On the other hand, locations with outlying areas that are almost equally accessible to established colleges or universities would necessitate a larger high school nucleus in the city itself to assure the given minimum of junior college students.

Two states, California and Texas, have by law provided that public junior colleges may be established only in connection with school systems having an average daily attendance in grades 9 to 12 of 400 students. Legislation in Michigan and Minnesota require populations of 25,000 and 50,000 respectively before junior colleges may be established within a given school district.

[p. 22] Under average conditions the minimum annual number of high school graduates in a city establishing a Junior College should be not less than 135.

Data from the sixteen junior college systems in Texas give for each city the percentage of its high school graduates in 1928 who were enrolled in the associated junior college in 1928-29. The ratio for the median city is 42 per cent. This study was based upon identical students. Again, this is only a central tendency of enrollment and subject to fluctuation under the influence of other conditions. In general, the larger high schools do not contribute as large a percentage of students to college as do high schools of more moderate size. No doubt this is due to the rapid development of terminal curricula in municipal high schools. Probably the upper limit of expectation for junior college enrollment of high school graduates over a period of years will not exceed fifty per cent and may fall somewhat below this in the larger school systems.

A somewhat different method of calculation was made for the enrollment relationships obtaining in seven junior college systems of Missouri. (12)

In this series of calculations, individual cases were not studied, but comparisons were made between the total junior college enrollment in a given year and the number of high school graduates in the related system for the preceding year. The median system showed a ratio of junior college enrollment for the year 1928-29 to high school graduates in 1928 of 65 per cent. Attention should be called to the fact that students in both years of the junior college are here included, while only freshmen enter into the Texas calculation. If the central tendency of enrolment relationships in Missouri is used as an index, it would require 150 graduates annually from the local high school to guarantee a junior college enrollment of 100 students.

Whitney(13) in a study of forty-seven junior colleges in seven states for the year 1927-28 shows that the median percentage of enrollment from outside the local school district is 23.8 per cent. If we assume this possibility of enrollment from outside sources and apply the central tendencies of enrollment and tenure from the Texas junior college systems, the relation between our specification for the minimum number of graduates and our specification for the minimum size of the junior college may be readily shown. Assuming 135 annual graduates from the local high school and taking a forty per cent enrollment of these students in the freshman class as a conservative estimate, we have a hypothetical freshmen enrollment from the associated high school of 54 students. If half of these students enroll as sophomores or remain in the junior college for the second year, the combined enrollment from the local school system would be 81 students. With one-fourth of the student body furnished from high schools outside the given district, it will be readily seen that the minimum of 100 junior college students may thus be obtained.

In Missouri the preliminary survey which is made before any school district may establish a junior college must show 200 high school graduates annually within a reasonable traveling distance of the proposed junior college site.(14)

The annual proportion of high school graduates who have attended higher educational institutions should run not less than 35 per cent for a period of years preceding the establishment of the Junior College.

Specifications given above for total high school enrollment and the average number of annual graduates are insufficient if there is not a strong interest in higher education on the part of the students and the community. The percentage estimate set forth here is conservative. Probably no high school in the state of Arkansas is so remote from an institution offering work on the college level as to make this percentage an unfair index of inter-[p 23]est in higher education. The attendance percentage of the graduates from high schools of moderate size should show an even larger proportion to guarantee that interest in higher education which is necessary for securing local approval and support for a junior college.

If school administrators make a study of the number of their graduates who are now enrolled in institutions of college grade as an index of probable future enrollment in a local junior college, they should be careful to exclude all students who are enrolled in higher educational institution at a distance of more than three hundred miles and students who are enrolled in technical curricula for which the local junior college can offer only a few hours in the way of preparation. There are so many chances of over-stimulating the probable junior college enrollment from this type of survey that the technique is not advised by the committee.

Administrators who are interested in the establishment of a junior college would do well to make a semi-objective survey of their own cities to determine the possibilities of part-time cases, night school casses [sic], and adult education classes as supplementary educational activities which could be carried on by the proposed junior college. Surveys of this type will often give an additional index as to the cultural status of the community, which is a very important, though intangible, characteristic in the success of a junior college.

Semi-objective surveys should also be made to determine the extent to which the local students and community will be adequately served by the types of junior college curricula which prepare largely for degrees in arts and science and in the professions. If there are evidences in the survey that the needs of the community would be better served by the development of semi-professional or vocational curricula, for the most part terminal in character, then the size estimates which have been given in the earlier parts of this section of the report should be measurably increased.

The present Survey Committee feels very strongly that a subsequent committee of the Arkansas Education Association should study the problem of the legal recognition of the junior college with a view to making a recommendation as to proper legislation. This task involves the setting up of procedures whereby a given city which has complied with the standards set forth in this report might have its junior college legally recognized and permitted to participate in the receipts from the eighteen mill tax. This investigation will intersect the problem of setting up machinery for determining when a given school district should be permitted to establish a junior college and that task should also be referred to the committee for investigation.

The members of the committee who have been active in the drafting of the final report include: Superintendent H. R. Haley, Hot Springs, Principal J. A. Larson, Little Rock; Dean Elmer Cook, Fort Smith; Dean E. L. Whitsitt, Jonesboro A. & M. College; Mr. M. 0. Owens, State High School Supervisor; Dean C. E. Prall, University of Arkansas, general chairman.

1. Some Phases of Finance in the Support of Thirty Representative Public Junior Colleges in Six Central States, an unpublished thesis at Indiana University by Earl A. Johnson.

2. Data for Pine Bluff are for the school year 1928-29.

3. Journal of Arkansas Education, June, 1930, p. 5-8.

4. Listed alphabetically. Not in order of average salaries here.

5. "Elementary" includes all teachers in grades 1-8 except teachers in junior high schools, six year high schools, and building principals.

6. Texas Municipal Junior Colleges, Bulletin No. 255, State Department of Education, Austin, Texas.

7. Earl A. Johnson, Some Phases of Finance in the Support of Thirty Representative Public Junior Colleges in Six Central States. Unpublished thesis at Indiana University

8. Koos, Leonard V., The Junior College Movement, Ginn & Co.

9. Reeves, Floyd W. Cost of Education in Liberal Arts Colleges, North Central Association Quarterly, December, 1927, P 248-261.

10. Woods, Economic Analysis of an Effective Junior College, Calif.. Quarterly of Secondary Education, October, 1928, p.20-24.

11. Whitney, F. L. The Junior College in America, p.183-187.

12. From data furnished in the report of the State Superintendent, from the State High School Directory, and from personal inquiries.

13. Whitney, F. L. The Junior College in America.

14. From information furnished by Assistant State Superintendent Mr. O. D. Sanford..