Community and Technical Colleges
The idea of a two-year college emerged in the mid-19th century by educator critics of existing American universities (including William Watts Folwell, President of the University of Minnesota).
These men saw freshman and sophomore years of college or university work as more closely related to secondary education than to the specialized and professional training in the senior college and graduate years. They advocated returning the lower two years of the university to the secondary schools.
In 1914, the University of Minnesota Senate passed a resolution that would recognize credit earned at schools such as junior colleges, which opened the door for the creation of junior colleges in Minnesota school districts.
The first junior college in Minnesota was established in 1914 by the Cloquet Public Schools and was funded by the local school district, as other junior colleges were. Rochester Junior College followed a year later when Dr. Charles Mayo made a motion to the Rochester Board of Education and they voted to provide college level courses. In 1996 the Junior College consolidated with the Rochester Technical College (Minnesota Riverland Technical College) to become what we know today as Rochester Community and Technical College.
Other junior colleges were established elsewhere in Minnesota such as St. Mary's Junior College (St. Catherine University, Minneapolis), Ely Junior College (Minnesota North College - Vermillion), Virginia Junior College (Minnesota North College - Mesabi Range Virginia), and more. In 1963, the legislature created the state Junior College Board, a system of fifteen state Junior Colleges, and also increased state aid. Ten years later the junior colleges were renamed community colleges and were governed by a new state board for community colleges. The redesignation was enacted by the 1973 Minnesota legislature.
In 1945 legislation passed that authorized local school districts to establish vocational-technical schools. The schools equipped people with useful skills for jobs in the areas of agriculture, home economics, health, office work, and other trades.
In 1968, Minnesota legislation passed to set up a structure for vocational-technical education among all of the independent school districts in suburban Hennepin County. At that time, there were 26 vocational-technical schools throughout Minnesota, but only three were located in the metropolitan area. Hennepin Technical College was one of the first to be established after the 1968 legislation passed. The recruitment brochure outlines the needs for occupational and vocational education in Hennepin County. The Eden Prairie and Brooklyn Park campuses broke ground on the very same day in 1970.
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