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THERE'S NO WAY Forest Park Community College in St. Louis can see itself as typical. Junior colleges are not homogeneous; they vary as widely as the fouryear colleges on which many of the early ones were modeled. Some junior colleges offer only the first two years of a traditional liberal arts program; some give only vocational courses; some are finishing schools for young ladies, only slightly modernized. Some provide dormitories; some are so doggedly nonresidential that they refuse to provide lists of available accommodations in the area. Some operate in the daytime from eight to four; some are open only from four to midnight; some begin at seven and go straight through till ten or later; there's a rumor that one or two operate straight around the clock. A few of them are privately supported, either by churches or private endowments; a few get all their money from local taxes; a few get it all from the state; most depend on revenue from a combination of sources. Some charge more than a thousand dollars a term in tuition, and some are absolutely free, at least to local residents. A very few date from the nineteenth century; quite a few are so new the students arrive well before the bricklayers. A fashionable comment, several years ago, was that a new junior college opened its doors every week, and though that comment sounds quaint today, it's probably safe to say that the majority are less than twenty years old. Some enforce careful entrance requirements, some provide placements tests and tracking systems, some are completely open admission: anybody over eighteen, or anybody with a high school diploma or its equivalent, can take any course for which registration is open. Some are almost all white, some are almost all black, and some are almost integrated. It isn't even safe to say that all of them are two-year schools; an associate degree, awarded