History

Duluth Junior College was created by the Duluth school district in 1927 so that “its young people can get their first two years of college at home.”  Eighty percent of D.J.C. students were from Duluth.  Its curriculum was designed “to give the work required for entrance to the senior college or to the professional schools that require two years of pre-professional work.”  The largest groups of students were enrolled in the engineering and business programs. With a population of more than 100,000, Duluth was the largest Minnesota city to support a junior college.  The result was that DJC had “excellent equipment . . . for the engineering and other technical courses.”  Another result was that the faculty was largely a junior college faculty—not a moonlighting high school faculty. 

But from the start D.J.C. faced serious problems.  First, Duluth already had a normal school, so that D.J.C. had to compete for local students—especially for women who tended toward the teaching profession.  Second, the tuition costs were a serious issue.  Initially $250 per year in 1927-28, fees were lowered to $200 in 1930—a figure still out of reach for many prospective students.  The local Duluth newspaper accused the board of “running a junior college available only to the children of the well-to-do.”  So fees were dropped to $100 in 1931 in a move to increase enrollment above 246.  In 1937 Duluth Junior College enrolled 413 students.  However, before closure, enrollment was reported at 111 students.

Ultimately, competition from Duluth Normal College and rumors of impending closures became too much, and D.J.C. closed after the 1949-50 school year.