COLLIN COUNTY COMMUNITY COLLEGE DISTRICT. The voters of Collin County approved the establishment of the Collin County Community College District, the election of a nine-member board, and a $70 million bond issue for the construction of two campuses on April 6, 1985. The first classes began in fall 1985, when 1,326 students met in high schools throughout the county. The central campus, on 155 acres near the intersection of U.S. highways 75 and 380 in McKinney, opened to over 2,000 students in January 1986.

In the fall of 1988 construction of a second campus was completed. The Spring Creek Campus, a 380,000-square-foot complex, is located on 110 acres at Spring Creek Parkway and Jupiter in east Plano. Besides classrooms, laboratories, and office space, this campus includes a physical education complex, a theater, a food-service area, a conference center, a learning-resource center, and a child-development center. The college subsequently added four more locations: the Courtyard Center for Professional and Economic Development, in Plano; the Preston Ridge Campus, which opened in 1995 in Frisco; CCCCD@Allen, a cooperative effort with the Allen Independent School District that opened in 1999; and the College Center at Rockwall, a cooperative effort with the Rockwall ISD that opened in 1999.

Collin County Community College District, the tenth largest college district in the state in 1989, was awarded full accreditation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools in the summer of that year. As of Decemeber 2000, the college offered thirty-three technical programs, forty-four associate of applied science degrees, and eighty-six certificates, as well as a number of academic programs leading to associate degrees in arts and sciences. In the fall of 1999 the district enrolled 11,867 students. The 695-member faculty included many part-time teachers. Cary Israel was the president of CCCCD in 2001.

Larry Collins