Harvard University became the first institution of higher learning in the British American colonies.

The University of Berlin was founded by Wilhelm von Humboldt and became the model for the modern research university.

The Columbian School was founded in Concord, VT and was the first normal school in the country, preparing students to become teachers.

The MA Board of Education was founded as the first such institution in the USA.

The Joliet Junior College was founded in Chicago. It was an annex to the Joliet High School and was the first institution to be named a junior college. It was the work of William Rainey Harper, president of the University of Chicago, and J. Stanley Brown, principal of Joliet High School.

The American Association of Junior Colleges was founded, later changing the name to American Association of Community Colleges.

The League for Innovation in the Community College was founded as a place to share ideas and promote best practices.

This group was founded as an AACC initiative and now primarily helps support distance education.

MIT began offering free access to lectures and courses.

Salmon Khan created the Khan academy which offers free online tutorials in a variety of subjects.

This company began offering low cost online classes in 2009.

Billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thieil offered 20 select students $100,000 a year to drop of out what he called a broken system of higher education to pursue entrepreneurial activity full time.

Company offering free online classes

Harvard and MIT partnered to offer free online classes in the fall of 2012, and have now been joined by Berkeley.

TED began offering "lessons worth sharing" and the ability to turn any Youtube video onto a lesson.

Udacity began offering 11 free online courses in 2012. This is an outgrowth of classes that had been offered for free at Stanford. It follows the MOOC model - Massive Open Online Class.

The MacArthur Foundation announced the winners of a contest to design digital badges as a means of credentialing learning.

The California legislature authorized high schools to teach post-secondary classes.

The North Central Association of Colleges and Schools was the first junior college organization to set accreditation requirements.

Congress passed the GI Bill providing funding for returning troops to go to college and beginning an age of mass-education.

This Supreme Court decision began the elimination of segregation in the United States' system of higher education.

California passed the Master Plan for Higher Education in California that created a 3-tiered system of higher education and the first statewide community college system in the nation.

This was the year SACS became the first accrediting body to add institutional effectiveness to the requirements for re-affirmation.

This is the program launched by the Obama administration with $2 billion in funding with the aim of having the highest proportion of college graduates in the world by 2020. It was announced during his first state of the union address.

The personal computer was made available around this time and was named the 1982 "machine of the year" by Time magazine.

English computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee and Belgian computer scientist Robert Cailliau submitted a proposal to CERN, the European research organization, for what would become the world wide web.

Canadian educational technologist Murray Goldberg created Web CT as the first online learning management system.

The popular internet search engine company has expanded into many more products such as Gmail, News, Sites, Maps, and Plus.

The free, open, online encyclopedia began and now has more than 4,000,000 articles in English. It has revolutionized access to information.

The world's most popular social network now has over 955 million users.

This video-sharing website has helped millions of users upload their personal videos and provided a network to see videos from a variety of sources. It was purchased by Google in 2006.

The popular micro-blogging site began this year and now has over 500 million users and receives over 1.6 billion search requests a day.

While not the first Smartphone, the iPhone pushed a revolution in mobile technology based on specific applications.

Sarah Austin translated a report in French written by Victor Cousin.

The American Association of University Professors issued the 'Declarations and Principles of Academic Freedom and Academic Tenure."

In a speech called "The junior college - what manner of child shall this be?", Berkley English professor Alexis Lange said that the junior college would be a preparatory school and a finish school for vocational education.

This report was published by the Bureau of Education. It argued that schools should be controlled by educational and political leaders and be used as a socializing instrument.

Leonard Koos wrote "The Junior College Movement" and said that in addition to preparing students for the university, the junior college would "round out" the education of students "who will not, cannot or should not go on".

The president of Stanford, Ray Lyman Wilbur, said "...while serving as a trying-out place for the youth of the country, the junior college, by relieving the university of the elementary work of the first two years, can set the American university free to carry out its own great purposes."

The Junior College Journal began publication out of Stanford University.

Sheldon Hayden wrote "Junior College as a Community Institution" and advocated for junior colleges to be more supportive of community needs in this book. He said that the comprehensive community-oriented mission was a democratic imperative.

"Why Junior College Terminal Education?" was a report published by the AACJ argued that more students should receive terminal education at junior colleges for semiprofessional jobs. Walter Crosby Eells wrote: "It would be unwise and unfortunate if all these [junior college students] tried to enter a university and prepare for professions which in most cases are already overcrowded, and for which their talents and abilities in many cases do not fit them."

The Truman Commission published a report called "Higher Education for Democracy" which among other things called for increased enrollment in community colleges. "It would be an institution to promote democracy, social mobility and economic development."

"The Community College" was written by Jesse Bogue and began to popularize the name "community college" that had also been used by the Truman Commission. He argued that the most important mission was "service primarily to the people of the community".

This University of Berkeley sociologist said that community colleges served to cool out students who lacked the social and economic capital to succeed.

Leland Medsker, vice chairman of the Center for the Study of Higher Education at Berkley wrote "The Junior College Progress and Prospect". He thought that while seemed to be structured in a way that prevented success for academically unprepared and lower SES students. He also thought that many community college students were too ambitious.

AAJC executive director Edmund Glazer wrote "This is the Community College" to popularize the open-door, comprehensive community college. He argued that the primary mission was the democratization of higher education.

The report by the Carnegie Commission argued that the rapid expansion of the community colleges in the 1960s needed to continue.

"A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform" was the report produced by President Reagan's National Commission on Excellence in Education. It said "the educational foundations of our nation or presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threaten our very future as a Nation and a people."

Steven Brint and Jerome Karabel wrote "the Diverted Dream: Community college and the promise of educational opportunity in America, 1900-1985". This was a New Left critique that reiterated Clark's idea of the cooling out function or diversion affect and claimed the the community college helped to legitimize this function of a hierarchically arranged system of American education.

Kevin Daugherty wrote "the Contradictory College".

John Tagg and Robert Barr wrote "From Teaching to Learning: A New Paradigm for Undergraduate Education" which began a shift towards a focus on learning rather than teaching or on learning outcomes rather than the inputs.

W. Norton Grubb and Associates wrote "Honored but Invisible: An inside look at teaching in community colleges" after conducting the first comprehensive study of the practice of teaching in the community college. They found that teachers are so overloaded that it is difficult for them to find time and resources to improve their teaching style.

The League for Innovation in the Community College published a white paper called "An Assessment Framework for the Community College."

An anonymous adjunct English instructor, Professor X, argued that college is not for everyone.

Dale Stephens dropped out of Hendrix College to start "Uncollege" where he is listed as chief educational deviant. Uncollege offers advice on educational alternatives to college.

The White House held a summit on the Community College

Journalist Anya Kamenitz wrote Edupunks' guide to a DIY credential.

There were 25 junior colleges in the U.S. in 1910.

Only 5% of of the 19-22 population was enrolled in higher education.

There were 325 junior colleges in the U.S. in 1927.

There were 575 junior colleges in the U.S. in 1939.

In 1967 over 900 community colleges enrolled about 1.7 million students.

There were 1,091 junior colleges in the U.S. in 1970.

47 states had adopted a system for reporting performance data for community colleges.

Almost 50% of first time undergraduates begin their post-secondary career at a community college.

The Soviets send a satellite into space causing the U.S. to drastically increase spending on science education.