Northern Essex Community College

Northern Essex Community College (also known as NECC or NECCO) is a state-assisted, two-year community college located in Essex County in northeastern Massachusetts. The college serves residents of the Merrimack Valley and Southern New Hampshire. It has campuses in Haverhill and Lawrence, Massachusetts.

Northern Essex is one of 15 community colleges in the Massachusetts Higher Education system. More than 6,600 students are enrolled in some 70 credit associate degree and certificate programs and another 3,400 take noncredit workforce development and community education classes on campus, and at businesses and community sites across the Merrimack Valley. It offers post-secondary education through the associate degree level, including career programs in areas such as nursing and allied health, computers, criminal justice, paralegal studies, and deaf studies and dozens of transfer programs for students who start their education at Northern Essex and transfer for their junior and senior years, eventually earning a bachelor's degree or higher. The college also offers developmental courses in writing, math, and English as a Second Language, designed to prepare students for college-level work, and noncredit programs for career advancement or personal enrichment.

Northern Essex is the first Massachusetts community college to offer Competency Based Education.

NECC is host to the Northern Essex Community College Police Academy, and the Essex County Sheriff's Academy.

More than two dozen NECC faculty and administrators are members of the Northern Essex Speakers Bureau. They speak on topics as diverse as chocolate, CSI, and Cuba. All speakers are passionate about their fields and eager to share what they know with the community.

Northern Essex offers an active athletic program. It offers men's basketball, baseball, track & field, and cross country. There is also women's volleyball, softball, track & field, and cross country. For the fourth consecutive year, the NECC Knights baseball team played in the NJCAA Division III world series, finishing the season second in the nation.

The college has a rural 106-acre Haverhill Campus (100 Elliott Street) which features seven campus buildings including a state-of-the art David Hartleb Technology Center (built in 2005) and the innovative Behrakis One-Stop Student Center. There are currently six locations in the nearby city of Lawrence: The Dimitry Building located (45 Franklin Street); iHealth@NECC (45 Franklin Street), The Louise Haffner Fournier Education Center (78 Amesbury Street); NECC Riverwalk (360 Merrimack Street, right off Interstate 495; the Dr. Ibrahim El Hefni Allied Health and Technology Center (414 Common Street); and another facility at 420 Common Street.

In the fall of 1961, Northern Essex opened its doors to 186 students in the then-former Greenleaf Elementary School on Chadwick Street in Bradford. Most were recent graduates of Haverhill High School as well as high schools in surrounding towns. The college was popular from the start and in 1971 the Haverhill campus was built in the bucolic setting off Route 110. The Dimitry Building in Lawrence opened in 1991, followed by the Louise Haffner Fournier Education Center in 2005, and NECC Riverwalk in 2010. The campus added its newest building, the El-Hefni Allied Health and Technology Building, in 2014.

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