History of Universities Near Concord, California

There are 80 colleges within 100 kilometers of Concord. Located in California with a population of 122,067, the nearest colleges are ranked by distance from Concord. The nearest college is Diablo Valley College, 3.7 miles from the center of Concord.

Diablo Valley College

Diablo Valley College was founded as East Contra Costa Junior College in 1949. The college enrolls more than 22,000 students in two locations.

California State University, East Bay

The university was established as the State College of Alameda County (Alameda State College) with its primary mission to serve the higher education needs of both Alameda County and Contra Costa County. Its construction was part of the California Master Plan for Higher Education, as proposed by Clark Kerr, and the original school site was Pleasanton, California. The campus was moved to Hayward before plans were finalized due to the efforts of Carlos Bee, Member of the State Assembly, and other supporters from the Hayward community, including S.E. Oh, Bond Jr, and E. Guy Warren, the same name as Warren Hall.

At the time of its opening in 1959, classes first took place at Sunset Elementary School and then at Hayward High School. With the addition of the school , higher education in the San Francisco Bay Area has become more accessible. To the south was San Jose State College (now San Jose State University) serving the counties of South Bay. To the west was San Francisco State College (now San Francisco State University) serving the counties of San Francisco and San Mateo. To the north is Sonoma State University, serving the counties of Marin, Napa and Sonoma. Chabot College, part of the California Community College system, opened near Hayward in 1961.

Contra Costa College

The college was founded as West Contra Costa Junior College in 1949, with the first class taking place in the spring of 1950 at a temporary location in the Kaiser Shipyards in Richmond, California. A permanent campus was opened in 1957 on Mission Bell Drive in downtown San Pablo. The college is flanked to the south by the Abella Center.

Saint Mary’s College of California 

St. Mary ‘s College began in 1863 as a diocesan college for boys set up by Most Rev. Joseph Alemany, a member of the Order of Preachers and the first archbishop of San Francisco. Unhappy with the work of the Archdiocese of the College, Archbishop Alemany requested assistance from Rome, and in 1868 St. Mary’s College was handed over to the Christian Brothers of De La Salle.

Holy Names University Oakland

Originally established as the Convent of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart in 1868 by six members of the Sisters of the Holy Names, a teaching order from Quebec , Canada. They were invited to Oakland by Father Michael King, pastor of St Mary ‘s Church, to set up a school for girls and to provide the means to train future teachers.

University of California, Berkeley

After the US Congress passed the Morrill Act in 1862, the California legislature procrastinated to establish a land-grant university. In the meantime, in 1866, the private college of California bought land comprising the current Berkeley campus to re-sell it in subdivided lots to raise funds. The effort failed to raise the necessary funds so that the private college merged with the state-run Agricultural, Mining and Mechanical Arts College to form the University of California, the first full-time public university in the state. This designation met the requirement for access to donated land under the Morrill Act.

Laney College Oakland

Laney College traces its history to the Central Trade School, founded in 1927 by the Oakland Board of Education and the Merritt School of Business (now Merritt College) in 1929. Later, the trade school was renamed Joseph C. Laney Trade and Technical Institute. Oakland Junior College was founded in 1953, with Laney serving as a vocational training center and Merritt hosting a liberal arts and business program. The college was renamed Oakland City College in 1958. With the establishment of the Peralta Junior College District in 1964, the Laney Institute, located on the current campus, and Merritt College in Alameda became separate autonomous colleges in their present form.

Los Medanos College

The name, which means “inland sand dunes” in Spanish, refers to the sand dunes that characterize its location in eastern Contra Costa County along the Sacramento River and in the foothills of Mt. Diablo. The college, opened in 1974, is part of the Contra Costa Community College District, along with Contra Costa College and Diablo Valley College. 

California College of the Arts Oakland, CA 

CCA was founded in 1907 by Frederick Meyer in Berkeley as the School of the California Guild of Arts and Crafts at the height of the Arts and Crafts movement. The Arts and Crafts movement originated in Europe at the end of the 19th century as a response to the industrial esthetics of the machine age. Followers of the movement advocated an integrated approach to art , design and crafts. Today, Frederick Meyer’s “Practical Art School” is an internationally renowned and respected institution that draws students from around the world.

Lincoln University

Named to honor the life and work of President Abraham Lincoln, Lincoln University was founded and chartered under California law in 1926. The first university officials were Benjamin Franklin Lickey, President, and Edward J. Silver, Vice President and Director of Education. In 1919, Lickey and his wife Susan founded a law study program in San Francisco for veterans returning after the First World War and other working adults that offered evening classes to part-time students while working as a western representative of the Law Department of the La Salle Extension University of Chicago, which offered degrees through correspondence courses.The program developed into a tutorial center with a broader curriculum. One of its early slogans was “The Shortcut to Success” and it offered “reasonable terms” and a “money-back guarantee.”