[5] In August 1960, an advisory council, consisting of 85 citizens from Macomb, Monroe, Oakland, St. Clair, Washtenaw, and Wayne counties, published a report calling for the establishment of five community colleges across the six-county region.

[6] With revenue secured, the newly established Board of Trustees acquired three campus sites, and hired John Tirrell, of the St. Louis Junior College District, as OCC's first president.

The first site was a disused Nike missile base in Pontiac Township (now Auburn Hills), purchased from the National Bank of Detroit for $247,000.

With a similar plan, the Board then purchased a second site, the disused Oakland County Tuberculosis Sanitarium in Waterford, and promptly began renovations.

3,860 students attended OCC during its first semester, exceeding projections, and setting a record for the largest opening enrollment of any community college in the United States.

Designed by a consortium of Perkins & Will and Detroit-based Giffels and Rosetti, the Brutalist campus was inspired by similar colleges in California, and reportedly won a 1966 award from the American Association of Architects.

From OCC's inception, the campuses' locations spurred controversy: their placement in the outer suburbs to the north and west made them inaccessible to the more densely populated areas in the southeast of Oakland County.

[3] In November 2022, OCC, citing declining enrollment and a changing job market, announced a three-year plan to fundamentally restructure and consolidate operations.

It will also include the relocation of health sciences programs to Orchard Ridge (from Highland Lakes and Southfield), and culinary programs from Orchard Ridge to a new culinary studies institute at Royal Oak, plus the renovation of the CREST training center and a new skilled trades and industrial technology center at Auburn Hills.

Built on a former Army Nike missile site in then-Pontiac Township, Auburn Hills was one of the two original OCC campuses (along with Highland Lakes), opening for classes in the fall of 1965.

The Auburn Hills campus is home to OCC's police academy, and the Combined Regional Emergency Services Training (CREST) center.

OCC's Southfield campus is located along the Lodge Freeway (M-10) half a mile north of the Detroit/Wayne County border, near the former Northland Center.