It was founded in 1938 to allow students the opportunity to obtain associate degrees, certificates and diplomas as well as provide vocational and technical training.
A holding company, known as the Ashland Junior College Corporation, formed by the board of education in 1937, purchased the First M.E.
During the 1942-1943 year, the center had two publications, "The Portico", the college annual, and the "Pony Prints", the student newspaper published twice monthly.
After Ashland, with the continued support of second term Governor Happy Chandler, President Dickey further expanded the program by developing University of Kentucky Extension Centers in Fort Knox (1958), Cumberland (1960), and Henderson (1960).
[9] Two years later, the Board of Trustees implemented the legislation and established the Community College System, recharacterizing the centers in Northern Kentucky, Ashland, Fort Knox, Cumberland, Henderson and creating a new campus in Elizabethtown.
[1] An additional $18 million in funding was provided in 2005 for phase two, which will include housing for Culinary Arts, recreation areas, a small bookstore and administrative offices, and for phase three, which will include housing for shop areas for diesel, carpentry, auto mechanics and applied process technologies.
[13] On February 21, 2005, ACTC signed into agreement with Marshall University to provide less costly opportunities for students in obtaining bachelor degrees.
[14] The program, dubbed the "two-plus-two" agreement, would allow students to take lower-level courses at ACTC and the final two years at Marshall in Huntington, West Virginia.
[12] In addition to technical programs offered at the Technology Drive Campus, it also serves as the home for the college's Business and Industry Services.
[18] The Center for Community, Workforce and Economic Development offers partnerships with local businesses and industries for on-demand performance- and quality-based training.
[24] It contains over 40,000 volumes, 1,000 videotapes and 380 periodical subscriptions, along with numerous online resources, and features a computer study area.
[23] ACTC received a $150,000 gift from Ashland Inc. in December 2003 that created a permanently restricted endowment fund, the proceeds of which were distributed to ACTC and other KCTCS colleges to support math and science initiatives with a specific focus on high school and middle school students.
[26] In 2004, the Ashland Community and Technical College established the Fulfilling the Promise Campaign to set an endowment goal of $3.2 million.
[27] The first major contribution was from Perry and Susan Madden in December 2006, who donated the former Parsons Department Store building in downtown Ashland.
[28] On September 12, 2007, an anonymous gift of $1 million was made to the community college's foundation to establish an endowed chair in mathematics and sciences.
[27] The endowed fund was designed to "reward and encourage outstanding math and science faculty in perpetuity" and it was the first gift of over $1 million that the college had received.
[27][29] Other major gifts included funding of faculty and nursing classes at King's Daughters Medical Center, the Booth Foundation, Saul and Harriett Kaplan Foundation scholarships, Lincoln and Katherine and Scott scholarships and partial funding of evening nursing classes at Our Lady of Bellefonte Hospital.
The College Drive campus also contains a theater,[31] which hosts numerous student-organized productions throughout the year.