About Hartnell College

Hartnell College is a community university in Salinas, California. Established in 1920 as Salinas Junior College, Hartnell is one of 115 schools that constitute the California Community Colleges, one of the three vanguard education systems in California. It enrolls nearly 10,000 students, 56% of whom are Latino, and the bookish is a Hispanic-serving institution. Its name commemorates William Hartnell (1798–1854), who founded the first junior college in California. Hartnell’s main campus is located less than a mile west of downtown Salinas. It furthermore has two satellite campuses, one in the Alisal district of Salinas and the additional in King City.

Salinas (/səˈliːnəs/; Spanish for saltworks) is a city in California and the county chair of Monterey County. With a population of 155,564 (as of 2019), Salinas is the most populous city in Monterey County. Salinas is an urban Place located in the Monterey Bay Area, just south of the San Francisco Bay Area and 10 miles (16 km) southeast of the mouth of the Salinas River. The city is located at the mouth of the Salinas Valley, roughly eight miles from the Pacific Ocean, and it has a climate more influenced by the ocean than the interior.

Salinas serves as the main business, governmental and industrial middle of the region. The marine climate is ideal for the floral industry, grape vineyards, and vegetable growers. Salinas is known as the “Salad Bowl of the World” for its large, vibrant agriculture industry.

It was the hometown of writer and Nobel laureate John Steinbeck (1902–68), who set many of his stories in the Salinas Valley and Monterey. Salinas is one of the largest communities in Northern California next a Hispanic majority and in the nation overall as of the 2010 census. The city plus has a sizable Asian-American population, once boasting the 2nd biggest Chinatown in the nation.