St. Petersburg College

St. Petersburg College (SPC) is a public college in Pinellas County, Florida. It is part of the Florida College System and one of the institutions in the system designated a "state college," as it offers a greater number of bachelor's degrees than traditional community colleges focused on associate degrees. It is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools and enrolled about 29,000 students in the fall of 2018. The school was founded in 1927 as a private junior college, the first in Florida. It later became a public institution and grew to include campuses throughout Pinellas County. Today it has eleven campuses and centers: four in St. Petersburg, Florida and seven in Seminole, Pinellas Park, Largo, Clearwater, and Tarpon Springs. History St. Petersburg College was founded in 1927 as St. Petersburg Junior College by Captain George M. Lynch, Pinellas County's city superintendent of schools for the city of St. Petersburg, as a private, non-profit institution. It was created in part because of the economic downturn preceding the Great Depression as a way for local students to receive a postsecondary education without having to relocate or pay high tuition. On opening day, the college consisted of 102 students and 14 faculty members, operating from an unused wing of St. Petersburg High School. After one semester, SPJC moved its operations to a former high school facility overlooking Mirror Lake, where it remained until January 1942. At this point, the facility was moved into a single building on the corner of 5th Ave. N. and 66th St. N.—a building still in active use today as the James E. Hendry Administration Building, part of the St. Petersburg/Gibbs Campus. SPJC became a public college in 1948.