El Paso Community College

El Paso Community College was financed by a bond issue in June 1969 and was originally intended to accommodate 16,000 students. When the college opened in fall 1971, 901 students attended classes held at various locations around the city. By the following year, when the college leased a complex of buildings at Fort Bliss from the Department of the Army, enrollment had climbed to 3,501, and by 1974, under president Alfredo de los Santos, enrollment had more than doubled, to 7,443. In 1975 the college purchased a building complex in downtown El Paso that became the Rio Grande Center, where the college's allied health programs were housed. A second campus, the Valle Verde Campus in southeastern El Paso, opened in the fall of 1978, and a third campus, the Transmountain Campus in northeastern El Paso, opened a year later. The Rio Grande Campus was expanded and renovated in 1980. Among the special facilities at El Paso Community College are the Center for Educational Services to the Handicapped, the Women's Center, and the Center for Business Services. In the fall of 1999 the president was William J. Campion and enrollment was 18,850. The college is governed by a locally elected board of trustees and is fully accredited by state and regional educational agencies.