The Community College Act of 1963 (Act 484, Statutes of 1963) authorized local communities to petition the Pennsylvania State Board of Education to sponsor and establish community colleges in the Commonwealth.

Each college must have a local sponsor, which may be a city, county, individual school district or consortium of these entities. Pennsylvania currently has 14 community colleges founded under the Community College Act of 1963. Four are sponsored by school districts and 10 are sponsored by counties.

Community colleges have established articulation agreements with the majority of four-year colleges and universities in Pennsylvania. Articulation agreements are formal agreements between two higher education institutions that establish the smooth transfer of a student’s credits and courses from one institution to the other. The Commission maintains a list of the four-year institutions with which community colleges have articulation agreements.

In 2005, Gov. Rendell and the General Assembly made sweeping changes to the statute governing community colleges through Act 46. Most significantly, Act 46 replaced the colleges’ old funding formula with streamlined and predictable one. Other key provisions of the new law included allowing for dual enrollment and establishing an independent auditing process, a separate line item for capital funding and annual data reporting.