The junior college movement: Corporate education for the working class

The working class, largely excluded from college life before the twentieth century, obtained access to higher education through the two-year college movement, which began in 1901. "Junior colleges," a name that education scholars at elite universities invented to denote the new institutions, grew out of a desire to put higher education in service to business interests. Junior colleges trained industrial workers and provided transfer to four-year colleges for the most qualified students. Through tools such as first-year composition curricula and active guidance counseling programs, junior colleges frequently attempted to teach students lessons in competition, individuality, and meritocracy. Leaders of the movement feared social unrest would result from burgeoning labor movements and the rapid influx of immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe and constructed disciplinary devices to squelch elements they perceived to be subversive and dangerous. Furthermore, leaders of the movement enjoyed support for their regressive ideology in the popular press, which legitimated the movement and helped to manufacture a need for the brands of education (e.g., vocationalism) the junior college came to promulgate