Northern Essex Community College

Northern Essex Community College (also known as NECC or NECCO) is a state-assisted, two-year college, located in Essex County in northeastern Massachusetts. The college serves residents of the Merrimack Valley including Southern New Hampshire.

Northern Essex is one of 15 community colleges in the Massachusetts Higher Education system and serves 16,000 full and part-time students each year. It offers post-secondary education through the associate degree level, including career programs in areas such as nursing and allied health, computers, criminal justice, paralegal studies, and deaf studies and dozens of transfer programs for students who start their education at Northern Essex and transfer for their junior and senior years, eventually earning a bachelor's degree or higher. The college also offers developmental courses in writing, math, and English as a Second Language, designed to prepare students for college-level work, and noncredit programs for career advancement or personal enrichment.