Wisconsin Technical College System

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Wisconsin Technical College System is a group of 16 technical college (community colleges) in Wisconsin.

1 History
2 List of member colleges
3 See also
4 External links

[edit] History

The Wisconsin Legislature passed laws in 1907 permitting cities to set up trade schools, and to set up a school board or system board to control the trade school. Wisconsin became the first state to establish a system of state support for vocational, technical and adult education schools. Every city with a population over 5000 was required to set up a school board. State aid was made available to set up these schools.

In 1911 an apprenticeship program was set up for 14- to 16-year-olds. Employers were required to release apprentices to schools if one was available, and to pay regular hourly wages for time spent at school. This was established through the work of Charles McCarthy, the first director of the present-day state Legislative Reference Bureau. The schools emphasized trade skills along with general cultural and vocational education. The Smith-Hughes Act, passed by the U.S. Congress in 1917 was modeled after Wisconsin's new program.

In 1961, the school boards were authorized to offer associate's degree for two-year technical courses. In 1965, the state legislature required a system of vocational, technical and adult education districts to cover the entire state by 1970. As a consequence, enrollments in the WTCS doubled from 1967 to 1982.

There were significant increases in the number of associate degree programs in the 1970s. Schools were also required to improve cooperation and coordination with the University of Wisconsin System.

In 1993, the state board was designated as the Technical College System Board, and the colleges became referred to as "Technical Colleges".