On Jan. 2, 1961, the county Board of Education established Anne Arundel Community College, a comprehensive community center of higher learning. The college opened in September that year for two-hundred and seventy students in evening and late-afternoon classes in temporary quarters at Severna Park High School.

In 1994 and again in 2004, the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools (now the Middle States Commission on Higher Education) reaffirmed the institution's accreditation without condition and the Maryland Higher Education Commission gave its approval of the college's programs and services; the National League for Nursing granted accreditation to the school's nursing sequence, as did the Maryland Board of Nursing.

ATHLETICS

Intercollegiate athletics at Anne Arundel Community College not only provides a competitive program that fosters the skills and values inherent in competitive sports, but encourages and fosters the transfer of student-athletes into 4 year institutions.