The public junior college has an interesting legislative history. A number of communities, such as Des Moines and St. Joseph, had organied junior colleges long before their state legislatures adopted enabling legislation granting these jurisdictions the authority to levy a local property tas and bond on behalf of a junior college.

The question is whether such legislation was required. Schoolmen argued that the junior college was a natural extension of the high school and so did not require its own legislation. Local civic leaders disregarded enabling legislation altogether. From their perspective, since their school districts paid approximately 90% of the cost of their schools, including junior colleges, their communities, and not some distant state legislature, should decide the extent of their community's schooling program.

While these perspectives are understandable, they are inconsistent with American law. School districts, like other state jurisdictions, are "creatures" of their legislature and subject to their control. Admittedly, state legislatures and state officials had considerable difficulty enforcing their authority before 1940, and especially in the thinly-populated Midwestern states. As a consequence, even when state school officials sought to exercise their authority, as in Illinois, local school officials simply ignored their state's wishes and there was little state officials or their legislatures could do in response.

The first and necessary step, largely completed by 1940, to give substance to state authority was the adoption of broad legislation -- known as "enabling legislation" and examples are listed below. These acts, remarkably similar across the nation, defined public schooling institutions by stipulating the extent of state authority over their curriculum, programs and taxing authority. But it was not until the 1950s, when state legislatures began a steady process of consolidating school districts in the name of efficiency at the same time increasing state funding to equilize per-pupil expenditures across school districts, that they acquired the necessary "sticks" to finally impose their will on local districts.

While not a major concern of state legislatures, given their relatively small number, junior colleges were nevertheless caught up in steady extension of state control of its public schools. They precented a particular problem for state legislatures, viz. were they part of secondary education or higher education? Most steps, following California's example, attempted a divided response. In strict legal terms, junior colleges were defined as integral parts of the public schools. But in many other respects, junior colleges were defined as part of higher education. This divided treatment is evidenced by the 1937 Colorado enabling act. It begins by defining junior colleges as integral to the state school system but then, in a subsequent provision, mandates that all courses offered by the college comparable to those included as part of the state university curriculum were to be accepted for full credit by the university.

On the whole, the documents included on this site have been drawn from the years before states began to have a substantial impact on the establishment and control of public junior colleges. Documents from the latter period, because the were products of state legislatures and school officials, are still generally available through university libraries and do not require inclusion in the documents found on this site.