Los Medanos College (LMC) opened its doors to students in 1974 in Pittsburg as one of the three colleges in the Contra Costa Community College District. In 1998, LMC began offering classes in Brentwood, where there now is a thriving center. With these two sites, the college serves approximately 9,000 students in East Contra Costa County.

As a comprehensive community college, LMC provides innovative career technical and transfer opportunities. Special programs include the LMC Honors Program, MESA (Math, Engineering, Science Achievement program), and learning communities where students find both the faculty and staff support they need and other students with common goals.

The college recently added a new library, and science and math buildings, providing cutting-edge facilties while increasing capacity by 50 percent to serve a growing and diverse East County population. Other upgrades in the original buildings are currently underway.

Reaching back 132 years into the Mexican heritage of Contra Costa County and to the heyday of its vast rancheros, the members of the district’s governing board decided to name the district’s third campus after Rancho Los Medanos — the last of the huge land grants made by the Mexican government during its sovereignty over California from 1821 to 1846. Los Medanos, loosely translated from Spanish, means "inland sand dunes."