It was founded in 1958 and enrolls approximately 3,500 students at campuses in Quincy and Plymouth, Massachusetts.

During the mid-1950s, demand for higher education on the South Shore, and Quincy in particular, led to the creation of the Citizen's Committee appointed to study the feasibility of establishing a community college.

This committee recommended that a community college should exist and as early as 1956, the first college-level courses were offered.

[4] Another ENC history professor, Charles W. Akers, became its first full-time director and transformed it into a junior college in 1958,[5] naming it Quincy Junior College (QJC) when it was first given power to grant associate's degrees in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

[4] In May 1958, College Courses, Inc., a non-profit charitable organization, was formed to help further higher education on the South Shore.

Less than one year after withdrawing its approval, the Board of Registration in Nursing voted to allow reopening of a refreshed and updated nursing program on the Quincy and Plymouth Campuses thanks to the rehabilitative efforts efforts of President Michael G. Bellotti and Provost Gerry Koocher.