Austin Community College

Austin Community College District

Austin Community College Highland Campus ACCelerator
Motto	Start Here. Get There.
Type	Community college district
Established	September 17, 1973 (1973-09-17)
President	Dr. Richard Rhodes
Provost	Dr. Charles Cook
Students	43,315 credit students (2012)
Location	Austin, Texas, United States
Sports	Intramurals available
Nickname	Riverbats
Mascot	R.B. Bbhoggawact
Website	Official website

The Austin Community College District (ACC) is a community college system serving the Austin, Texas metropolitan area and surrounding Central Texas communities. The college maintains numerous campuses, centers, and distance learning options to serve about 100,000 students in academic, continuing education and adult education programs.

ACC offers associate degree and career/technical certificate programs in about one hundred areas of study. Most courses taken within the district are meant to apply for associate degrees, which help students qualify for jobs or which can be transferred to four-year institutions. ACC is the sixth largest community college system in the United States, and the fourth largest college in Texas.

In the 1960s Austin residents and leaders discussed the possibility of establishing a community college for their growing city. The question was put to a vote repeatedly, but voters rejected the proposed taxpayer-supported college system in 1963, 1965 and 1968. In 1972, however, an alternative proposal that would allow the new college to be operated (and funded) by Austin Independent School District won a majority of voters' support. This plan meant that (at least initially) ACC would not levy any taxes on local residents to fund its operation, relying instead on state bodies such as the Texas College System Coordinating Board and the Texas Education Agency (as well as tuition and fees from students).

ACC received its accreditation from SACS in 1978. As the system's student population grew, it quickly came to need more funding than its operation as a branch of AISD could provide. In 1981 the school administration petitioned voters in Travis County to make ACC a county-wide public college with its own taxing authority and to permit it to issue bonds to fund facility expansions and renovations. The initiative was initially rejected at the polls, but a similar measure was enacted in 1986, separating ACC from AISD and establishing its governing board and taxing authority.