20-28/28. Georgia Perimeter College

DeKalb College, 1963. DeKalb County Board of Education creates a two-year public institution of higher education called DeKalb College, which opens under provisions of Georgia’s 1958 Junior College Act. DeKalb County school superintendent Jim Cherry sees the institution as the capstone of the county’s public educational system, providing open admission to all citizens from primary grades through a two-year college associate degree. Groundbreaking for the Clarkston (DeKalb County) campus occurs in 1963, and classes begin for 763 students in Fall 1964. DeKalb Community College, 1972: In 1972 college students become eligible to enroll and receive vocational training at DeKalb Area Technical School (later called Georgia Piedmont Technical College), located adjacent to DeKalb College’s Central Campus in Clarkston. The new institution, DeKalb Community College, is a pioneer in joint enrollment (high school students enroll in college classes) and “televised courses” (distance learning). DeKalb College, 1986. The school relinquishes its vocational affiliations and programs, becomes a unit of the University System of Georgia (USG), is renamed DeKalb College, and expands outside DeKalb County and throughout metropolitan Atlanta. Georgia Perimeter College, 1997. Reflecting the college’s growing influence in the Atlanta metropolitan area as well as the state, the USG’s Board of Regents changes its name to Georgia Perimeter College (GPC). Perimeter College of Georgia State University, 2016. USG Board of Regents merges GPC and Georgia State University in January 2016, creating a large, diverse, urban institution with a strong distance-learning program (Perimeter College Online) and ongoing support for military students and veterans (Military Outreach Center).