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Community colleges are the institutions which offer certificate programs, after completion of secondary school. The courses on offer include Associate of Arts degree, Associates of Sciences degree, apart from host of other programs. The associates degree, be it in science or arts,  helps a student to earn a degree that paves the way for him to enter into a job where minimum requisite college education is required, though it is not a full time degree.

From the latest information collected by the American Association of Community Colleges thee are more than 1100 community colleges. Before 1970s and 1980s community colleges were also referred as Junior colleges and some of the institutions still continue to use this term for the sake of nostalgia perhaps. The distinction however has to be made as now the junior colleges are referred to as those institutions that offer two-year courses, while those who are in the public domain are generically referred to as community colleges.

It was this difference as a result of which the community colleges adopted a new name for themselves as “American Association of Community Colleges”, in 1992.  The change in nomenclature was decided to differentiate from the Junior colleges. Community colleges are also called as county colleges, as they form the branch of the community colleges in a city like in Texas. The alternate definitions of community colleges are owing to the kind of funding that they receive. Therefore, they are called as county colleges in Texas, as there funding in Texas is undertaken by property taxes from the community.

In the areas around California (included in this list are Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego) the community colleges are also called as city colleges. This is on account of the fact that there funding is made by the municipal community with the expectation that it would meet the needs of the community.