College in the 1920's

The websites I used for this blog post were http://kclibrary.nhmccd.edu/decade20.html and http://cehd.umn.edu/History/Timeline/1920s.html

To give a brief overview of the 1920's, there were only 106,521,537 people in the united states. Approximately 2,132,000 people were unemployed, which comes out to an unemployment rate of 5.2%. Life expectancy for males was 53.6 years and for females it was 54.6 years. The average annual earnings was $1236 and a teachers salary was $970. Given this information, it is clear that there were a lot less people around, with a much lower life expectancy. So college might not have been such a high priority for people in the twenties and for most it wasn't even an option. The site I found that pertained to college life dealt specifically with the University of Minnesota. In 1921 the first Minnesota radio station formed at the University of Minnesota. In 1925 the famous Tennessee vs. John Scopes trial took place that dealt with the issue of evolution being taught in schools. This has been an extremely import case because today evolution is taught in schools and is widely accepted. In 1926 the SAT was administered to highschool students for the first time. Finally, in 1929 Minnesota law for the first time establishes teaching certification that requires professional training coursework. The college then modified its course offerings to satisfy the state law. It seems as though the twenties helped pave the road to modern day college.