Montgomery College

We’re All About Transforming the Community College Experience. We embrace our role as both a college and a community.

We are learners. Seekers. Achievers. MC provides access to quality higher education that empowers everyone to achieve success and create meaningful change.

Montgomery College is a public, fully accredited institution. Led by President DeRionne P. Pollard, MC is dedicated to student success and widely recognized for the quality and scope of its academic programs.

More than just words, our mission, vision, and values reflect, in an inspiring way, who we are as an institution and why we are so dedicated to our students and their success. These aspirational standards set our priorities and drive our actions every day. We empower our students to change their lives, and we enrich the life of our community. We are accountable for our results. With a sense of urgency for the future, Montgomery College will be a national model of educational excellence, opportunity, and student success. Our organization will be characterized by agility and relevance as it meets the dynamic challenges facing our students and community.

Montgomery College has grown into an institution where radical inclusion—that is, deeply rooted values of welcoming all individuals who seek higher education or continuing education—is an essential element of our identity. By intentionally cultivating our campuses as places where equal opportunity flourishes, we have advanced our own educational mission, contributed to the aspirations of Montgomery County, and added to the vision of our nation.

We are here to ensure that every student—regardless of ability, background, economic status, race, or age—has access to higher education. One of our main challenges is to focus on equity in success. This means that we provide all students, including those from disadvantaged backgrounds who typically don’t perform as well in college, with the assistance, opportunities, and tools not just to attend college but to effectively reach their goals. Our job is to ensure that everyone has the ability to achieve success by redesigning our institutions for those outcomes.

Montgomery College faculty and staff have gone to great lengths to create robust learning environments where all persons feel safe voicing their perspectives and where intellectual rigor is the basis for engaging across difference. The College will continue to affirm the rights of all persons to study and pursue opportunity through education, free from fear and distraction. Our institution will continue to be a place where diversity thrives and where difference is celebrated.

Montgomery College’s rigorous academic programs are designed to engage, inspire, and enable you to achieve your dreams. MC offers thousands of challenging classes across a wide variety of credit and noncredit programs. Choose from more than 100 degree and certificate programs, or search the Workforce Development & Continuing Education (WDCE) catalog for noncredit programs and courses.

Online. Anytime. Anywhere. Join the more than 21,000 students a year taking classes online at MC. Our online courses and degrees give you the convenience of flexible scheduling combined with the same academic rigor and affordability of our on-campus offerings.

As a distance learner at MC, you'll have access to online counseling, advising, library resources, tutoring, and more, and you're also welcome to use our on-campus facilities anytime. Montgomery College's Honors Program is a collegewide program for motivated students seeking exciting and academically rewarding experiences. It allows students to discover and develop their talents and interests through honors courses, seminars, independent study, internships, service-learning opportunities, and social and cultural activities. It features four special programs: Montgomery Scholars, The Scholars Circle, Macklin Business Institute, and Renaissance Scholars.

Counseling faculty help students with their personal, career, and educational goals and assist students with selecting the courses that are right for them. Counselors also teach student success courses, such as First Year Seminar, and provide interventions and support when students need help.

At Montgomery College, we're dedicated to helping all students succeed. We offer a variety of programs designed to give students the mentoring and support they need to reach their goals. When we celebrate and empower diversity at Montgomery College, we recognize and value disability as a distinct aspect of our diverse community. Disability Support Services (DSS) leads this effort, to promote full participation and equal access to educational opportunities, programs and activities. DSS provides accommodations and support services for students with documented disabilities, and educates the larger College community on disability related issues.

Montgomery College offers a range of services to students and alumni to support the career planning process. This includes access to career exploration information, opportunities for hands-on experience and support for the job search process.

On September 16, 1946, the first Montgomery College classes were held in the evenings at a local high school with a student body of 186 men and women. Today, the College has grown to a multi-campus institution and serves nearly 60,000 students a year, through both credit and noncredit programs, in more than 100 areas of study. Pictured here is an April 1964 tent theater production on the Takoma Park Campus. Learn more about the College's beginnings in "Veterans Welcome at 'First Junior College in the State,'" part one of a two-part series published in the College's alumni magazine celebrating the College's 70th Anniversary.