Results of multivariate cross-tabular analysis of the college destinations of over 8,000 Illinois high school graduates of different sex, ability and social status backgrounds living in communities with and without a local public junior college question the assumption that the local availability of such institutions will enhance the probability that persons of lower social status will complete a four-year degree. Rather than increase local attendance rates, the public junior college appears to substitute attendance locally for attendance elsewhere in a manner inversely related to social status. Among persons of lower social status backgrounds, in particular, the substitution effect is such as to replace attendance at non-local four-year institutions with attendance at the local public junior college. It is suggested, therefore, that public junior colleges may function latently to divert lower status persons from going on to the four-year institutions and, in the process, "cool-out" social group demands for entry into the more prestigious four-year institutions of higher education. Public junior colleges may act, then, to reinforce prevailing social inequality rather than to diminish it. (Author)