The official page of Kapiʻolani Community College, your pathway to lifelong learning in liberal arts, 4-year degree transfer, & careers in STEM, health sciences, business, culinary and hospitality. Kapiʻolani Community College is Hawaiʻi's largest community college with technical, occupational and professional programs in business education, food service and hospitality education, and nursing. Loc
ally, KCC is well known for its culinary program. Other students attend Kapiʻolani Community College as a starting point before moving on to the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa to complete a bachelor's degree. Of all the community colleges in the University of Hawaiʻi System, KCC has the largest liberal arts student body with over 4,500 students enrolled annually. The campus also attracts students from Asia such as Japan, Hong Kong and Korea because of its proximity to the Mānoa campus as well as Waikiki. It is also a leading community college campus in Hawaii for business education programs such as information technology, accounting and marketing. Originally located at Pensacola Street and Kapiʻolani Boulevard (from which the school gets its name), adjacent to President William McKinley High School in the Makiki community, Kapiʻolani Community College was established in 1946 as Kapiʻolani Technical College. The school was administered by the Territory of Hawaiʻi as one of its chief vocational schools, specializing in food service. In 1965, its curricula was modified and became an open-door public college administered by the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. As part of the realignment of programs, the school adopted its current name. Kapiʻolani Community College experienced rapid growth in the 1970s and in need of new, larger facilities. In 1974, the Board of Regents acquired a 52 acre (210,000 m²) parcel of land on the slopes of Diamond Head in Waikīkī, formerly owned by the United States Army. Kapiʻolani Community College opened its second campus at Fort Ruger, the only college in the University of Hawaiʻi system to have two campuses of its own. The Board of Regents then agreed to move with a complete transfer of programs to the Fort Ruger campus and close the Makiki campus. Kapiʻolani Community College finally completed the transfer in the late 1980s.
