Our Campuses

The North Orange County Community College District’s (NOCCCD) history began with the creation of Fullerton Junior College in 1913. As one of the first community colleges operating in the state of California, Fullerton Junior College provided students in North Orange County with the opportunity to complete the first two years of a traditional post-secondary education in their local community. Fullerton Junior College was reorganized in 1922 as an Independent Junior College District—Fullerton Junior College District—though it continued to share a Board of Trustees with the High School District. The College’s mission expanded in the 1920s to include vocational programs, the first of which were oil production, typing, stenography, and bookkeeping.

The transition from Fullerton Junior College District to NOCCCD began in 1964 when the residents of three school districts (Anaheim Union High School District, Brea-Olinda Unified School District, and Placentia Unified School District) elected to form an interim junior college district to be merged with the existing Fullerton Junior College District. This merger increased the NOCCCD boundaries to 155 square miles and brought the first election of a NOCCCD Board of Trustees.

The increased service area justified the development of two additional sites, one in Cypress and the other in Yorba Linda. Cypress College welcomed its first students in 1966. The second campus opened in fall 1982. Whereas Fullerton College and Cypress College focus on the traditional two-year education for students seeking an associate’s degree and/or transfer to a four-year university, the four-building complex of the Yorba Linda campus was established to provide noncredit educational opportunities to the adult student population. In addition to the Yorba Linda site, branches of the Adult and Continuing Education Center were opened in Anaheim in March 1982 and in Fullerton in January 1984. The Adult and Continuing Education Center changed its official name to the School of Continuing Education in 1998.

In 2001, NOCCCD acquired the former Martin Luther Hospital building and converted it to an educational site called the Anaheim Campus. Classes from Cypress College, Fullerton College, and the School of Continuing Education were first offered at this location in January 2003. In 2003 noncredit programs were relocated from the Yorba Linda Center to the Anaheim Campus and the Yorba Linda site was sold to the Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District. NOCCCD offices, formerly housed adjacent to Fullerton College, relocated to the Anaheim Campus, along with the administrative offices for the School of Continuing Education and the NOCCCD Special Services Department and Warehouse.

The School of Continuing Education changed its official name a second time to North Orange Continuing Education (NOCE) in 2017. The same year, Cypress College expanded its offerings with the District’s first baccalaureate degree program in Mortuary Science. Cypress College became one of 15 California community colleges to offer a bachelor’s degree program.