Overview and facilities
Bellevue College is a public institution of higher education located in Bellevue, Washington, a city on the Eastside of Lake Washington, near Seattle. With an annual enrollment of 32,500 students, Bellevue College (BC) is the largest of the 34 institutions that make up the Washington Community and Technical Colleges system, and the third-largest institution of higher education overall in the state (behind the University of Washington and Washington State University.
The institution offers transfer associate degree programs that cover the first two years of a college education, a multitude of professional-technical degrees and certificates, a large continuing education program, and a variety of pre-college programs. The college also has a variety of distance education and online learning options. Since 2007, BC has offered four-year bachelor's degrees.
BC’s service district includes the public school districts of Bellevue, Mercer Island, Issaquah, Skykomish and Snoqualmie Valley.
The college initially operated in portable classrooms on the campus of Newport High School. In December 1967, ground was broken for the first of three phases of construction of a new campus, on land purchased a few years earlier by the Bellevue School District. In 1969, construction was completed, and BC began the fall quarter on its new campus, with 2,200 full-time students. Phase two of construction, completed in 1973, doubled the size of the campus, and included a 300-seat theater (the largest public theater in Bellevue at the time), 2,500-seat gymnasium and sports complex, planetarium (the first in the Puget Sound region), daycare center and greenhouse. The third construction phase was finished in 1974 and added 24,000 square feet of space, along with a running track and other facilities.