It’s an exciting year for Mt. San Jacinto College! We’re celebrating 60 years of providing higher education and building on our Legacy of Transformation to secure a strong future for this region.
Thanks to a visionary group of leaders and voters who knew this region needed a community college of its own, MSJC opened its doors to students in 1963. Eight excited students made up the first graduating class in 1965. Today, this vibrant community college serves 27,000 students annually. The Class of 2023 celebrated 2,078 graduates.
MSJC, one of California’s 116 community colleges, is proud of its Legacy of Transformation. Over the past 60 years, the college district grew from offering college courses in rented facilities throughout Banning, Beaumont, San Jacinto, and Hemet to serving a robust and growing 1,700 square miles that reaches south to Temecula and from Idyllwild to Lake Elsinore. MSJC has campuses in San Jacinto, Menifee, and Temecula. MSJC’s San Gorgonio Pass Campus serves as Beaumont Unified School District’s Middle College High School Campus.
The Temecula Valley Campus, our newest, features state-of-the-art labs, technology, and classrooms with a wide offering of programs. It includes a veterans’ resource center, health center, career center, counseling, financial aid, and more. We partner with California State University, San Marcos at the campus to provide students a convenient, seamless pathway to a four-year degree.
MSJC is an economic engine for this region of more than 1 million residents. We offer associate degrees, transfer courses and certificates that prepare students for transfer to universities and for high-demand, high-wage careers. We generate $500 million into the local economy. We focus on initiatives that support diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility. We strategically plan programs and resources so we can continue to serve this region – one of the fastest growing in the nation – for generations to come.
MSJC has been able to build or purchase much-needed facilities and make improvements across the district thanks to 2014’s Measure AA, the $295 million facilities bond, including the Temecula campus, the Athletics and Kinesiology Complex in Menifee and two STEM buildings scheduled to open soon – in San Jacinto and Menifee. Those funds have been fully committed and state funding fluctuates with economic conditions.
This is a pivotal time for us to secure a strong future. To keep delivering on our mission for the students, businesses, local government agencies, and other institutions in our region, increased funding from a variety of sources will address the growing gap between state funding and what we need to meet the demand for higher education and skilled workers.
The MSJC Foundation, celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, is stepping up to meet that challenge. The Foundation is a nonprofit, 501(c)3 corporation that helps support students and underwrite programs and facilities that require additional funding.
The Foundation has launched an important new naming rights initiative to enable philanthropic individual donors and corporate partners to help secure and maximize the unrestricted funding that is necessary to support student needs.
Under this new initiative, HCN Bank (formerly The Bank of Hemet), became the first corporate partner to enter into a $1 million naming agreement. The new stadium at the Menifee Valley Campus is now home to the “HCN Bank Stadium.”
Naming rights partnerships tied to other facilities and programs are available to help us close funding gaps.
Help keep the MSJC Legacy of Transformation going.
Contact Rebecca Orlauski, Director of Foundation and Donor Initiatives, at 951-487-3171 or rorlauski@msjc.edu.