Community College
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40 free Community College trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Community colleges teach millions of Americans every year, yet most people know surprisingly little about them. Behind the low tuition and evening classes sits more than a century of history, a long list of famous former students and some of the strangest campus stories in higher education. These fun facts about community college are written as quiz questions. They cover where the idea began and how it got its name, the actors, athletes, astronauts and business founders who started at a two-year school, the unusual things some campuses own or run, junior college sports, and the films and television shows set in these classrooms. The quiz suits students and graduates, teachers and advisers planning an orientation or a spirit week, and anyone curious about a part of education that rarely gets the spotlight. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you leave with the story behind the fact.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Scottsdale Community College students in Arizona picked which unlikely vegetable as their sports mascot?
An artichoke
An artichoke named Artie has led the Fighting Artichokes since the 1970s, when students chose it as a protest against money being spent on sports instead of academics.
Q 02Which Oscar-winning actor spent two years studying theater at Chabot College in Hayward, California?
Tom Hanks
Tom Hanks moved on to California State University, Sacramento after Chabot, and while studying theater he met the head of Cleveland's Great Lakes Theater Festival.
Q 03On the NBC sitcom Community, which fictional Colorado community college do Jeff Winger and his study group attend?
Greendale
Greendale was drawn from life: creator Dan Harmon based the show on his own time at Glendale Community College in California.
Q 04Which First Lady kept teaching English at Northern Virginia Community College while living in the White House?
Jill Biden
Jill Biden was the first First Lady to hold a salaried job for most of her husband's presidency, and she had taught at the school since 2009.
Q 05Santa Fe College in Gainesville, Florida, trains students at which unusual attraction on its own campus?
A zoo
A zoo on the campus is the only one at any college accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, and its zookeeping students lead the guided tours.
Q 06In 1984, Steve Jobs unveiled which Apple computer at the Flint Center on De Anza College's campus in Cupertino?
The Macintosh
The Macintosh made its debut in the community college's theater, and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak had been a De Anza student years earlier.
Q 07In which Illinois city did America's oldest public community college open in 1901 with just six students?
Joliet
Joliet Junior College held its first classes inside the township high school, whose superintendent J. Stanley Brown pressed his graduates to keep studying.
Q 08Which US military branch has run its own community college since 1972, awarding associate degrees to enlisted members?
The Air Force
Air Force and Space Force enlisted members earn two-year applied science degrees through it, and its vast student body makes it the world's largest community college system.
Q 09Which Netflix documentary series first followed football at East Mississippi Community College in Scooba?
Last Chance U
Last Chance U spent its first two seasons in Scooba, at one of the most successful junior college football programs in the country.
Q 10The first hall of fame in America stands on a community college campus in which New York City borough?
The Bronx
The Bronx is home to the Hall of Fame for Great Americans, an outdoor gallery of bronze busts that Stanford White designed for a campus then owned by New York University; it was dedicated in 1901.
Q 11Which blockbuster director studied anthropology at Modesto Junior College before film school at USC?
George Lucas
George Lucas grew up in Modesto, and his memories of the town's teenage life in the early 1960s became his breakout film American Graffiti.
Q 12Which future baseball Hall of Famer starred in four sports at Pasadena Junior College before transferring to UCLA?
Jackie Robinson
Jackie Robinson played football, basketball, baseball and track at Pasadena, and at UCLA he was better known for football than for the game that made him famous.
Q 13Which Super Bowl-winning quarterback played a season at Butte College before joining the California Golden Bears?
Aaron Rodgers
Q 21Students at Walla Walla Community College in Washington make and sell which product through a campus business?
Wine
Wine from College Cellars, the school's teaching winery, is made by students who also tend its vineyards, and many of the region's winemakers trained there.
Q 22In the 2010s, Austin Community College in Texas turned which kind of failing property into its Highland campus?
A shopping mall
A shopping mall, Highland Mall, was the first enclosed one in Austin; the school bought it in 2012 and opened the first phase of the campus two years later.
Q 23Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn is the only New York City campus with which summer perk of its own?
A private beach
Aaron Rodgers was discovered by California's head coach only because the coach had come to recruit one of his Butte teammates, a tight end.
Q 14In which film does Robin Williams play a therapist who teaches psychology at Boston's Bunker Hill Community College?
Good Will Hunting
Good Will Hunting won Williams the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor as Sean Maguire, and the real Bunker Hill campus was one of its Boston filming locations.
Q 15Arnold Schwarzenegger, Dustin Hoffman and James Dean all took community college classes in which California city?
Santa Monica
Santa Monica College also owns the NPR station KCRW, which broadcasts from its campus; Hoffman enrolled there to study medicine until an acting class changed his mind.
Q 16Jim Sinegal, who earned an associate degree at San Diego City College, co-founded which warehouse retail giant?
Costco
Costco was founded by Sinegal and Seattle retailer Jeff Brotman, and Sinegal led it as chief executive from 1983 until 2011.
Q 17In 2014, which state became the first to launch a statewide program for free community college tuition?
Tennessee
Tennessee called its scholarship the Promise, and it pays whatever tuition and fees remain after a student's other grants; the first class enrolled in fall 2015.
Q 18Which US president's Commission on Higher Education helped popularize the term community college after World War II?
Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman's commission called for a national network of public community colleges that would charge students nothing, an idea its six-volume report set out in 1947.
Q 19Which Corning Community College graduate became the first woman to command a Space Shuttle mission?
Eileen Collins
Eileen Collins earned an associate degree in mathematics at Corning in 1976, and the 1999 flight she commanded carried the Chandra X-ray Observatory into orbit.
Q 20What is the name for programs that let high school students earn community college credit before graduating?
Dual enrollment
Dual enrollment credits can count toward both a diploma and a degree, and some students finish an associate degree around the time they leave high school.
A private beach on the campus opens for swimming each summer, and the site looks out over Sheepshead Bay, Jamaica Bay and the Atlantic Ocean.
Q 24Which jeans and underwear designer trained at FIT, a New York fashion school that is officially a community college?
Calvin Klein
Calvin Klein finished his degree at the Fashion Institute of Technology, which joined the State University of New York as a community college in 1951.
Q 25Which honor society for two-year college students was founded at Stephens College in Missouri in 1918?
Phi Theta Kappa
Phi Theta Kappa was created when eight Missouri women's colleges merged their separate honor groups, and it borrowed its name and model from the older Phi Beta Kappa.
Q 26Which association, founded in Fresno in 1938, runs national championships for American two-year college sports?
NJCAA
The NJCAA was born in California but no longer operates there, because the state's community colleges now compete in a separate association of their own.
Q 27Which 1944 law sent a wave of new students into American two-year colleges after World War II?
The GI Bill
The GI Bill sent so many returning veterans into classrooms that junior colleges grew quickly, helped along by a rising demand for adult education.
Q 28Ivy Tech, whose name began as the initials of a vocational technical college, is which state's community college system?
Indiana
Indiana founded it in 1963 as Indiana Vocational Technical College, and the nickname I.V. Tech stuck for decades before the name was made official in 1995.
Q 29Which Native nation opened Diné College in 1968, the first college founded by Native Americans for Native Americans?
Navajo
Navajo leaders first named it Navajo Community College, and its first semester drew 340 students, as many as the new campus could hold.
Q 30Which Canadian province sends students to a two-year CEGEP college after grade 11, before they can enter university?
Quebec
Quebec requires a CEGEP diploma for university admission, and its students leave high school a year earlier than those elsewhere in North America.