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Washington State Agricultural College and School of Science (later State College of Washington, later Washington State University) was authorized in 1890 and began teaching classes in January of 1892. For its first couple decades, the college offered both college-level programs and below college-level programs, the equivalent of today's high-school work (when the college began, no more than six four-year high school existed in Washington). The primary non-college program was the Preparatory School, retitled in 1905 as the Elementary School, later the Department of Elementary Science. Program enrollment slowly decreased once high schools became more commonplace, grew briefly again just after World War I, and the began decreasing again until the program was finally permanently discontinued after the 1925-1926 school year. Several other lower-level programs had existed beside their college-level counterparts, including agriculture, artisanship, and business.