Founded in 1973 in the Charlestown neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, United States, BHCC provides higher education and job training services at two campuses and three satellite locations.

BHCC is the state's largest community college, enrolling more than 13,000 students[5] in day, afternoon, evening, late-evening, weekend, and web-based distance-learning courses.

[7] It is served by the MBTA Orange Line rapid transit station called Community College, and sits near the site of the 1775 Battle of Bunker Hill in the American Revolutionary War.

[8] Since 1987, a second campus has provided higher education and job training to residents of Chelsea, Revere, Everett, East Boston, Winthrop and other surrounding communities.

[10] In Boston's South End, BHCC worked with Inquilinos Boricuas en Acción (IBA), a community-based organization, to establish the Pathway Technology Campus (PTC) in Villa Victoria, a predominantly-Latino affordable-housing community.