[3] The official school history alternatively says it originated in 1963 when the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (TTPI) contracted the University of Hawaii to administer the Micronesian Teacher Education Center, an in-service training facility for selected TTPI teachers.

[4] According to Thomas R. Murray, Community College of Micronesia began operations in 1969 as a way of enhancing the training of area teachers, and it initially issued elementary education associate degrees.

[4] Beginning in 1971, the TTPI Department of Education began assuming more responsibility for the college; the university involvement was phased out in 1973.

CCM remained essentially a teacher college until 1974 when the first non-education-related associate degree program was added to the curriculum.

[5] However, the school's official history says the change occurred in 1978 when an act of the Seventh Congress of Micronesia joined CCM with the then Micronesian Occupational Center in Palau and the College’s nursing school in Saipan to form the College of Micronesia (COM) as a public corporation governed by a Board of Regents.