History of Highland Park Community College

Throughout the history of Highland Park Community College many higher education programs have been hosted out of the school. When Henry Ford moved his operations of his Ford Plant from the Detroit Piquette Plant to a new Plant in Highland Park to avoid the high taxes of Detroit, many workers made Highland Park home, and caused a boom in population the city. In 1918 Highland Park was incorporated as a city, and just years earlier the building and planning of five schools, three churches, two hospitals, and the main library, mixed in with ornate high-rise apartment buildings along Highland st. was planned, In this densely populated neighborhood one could be born, baptized, attend nursery school, elementary school, high school, and college, all without going more than three blocks in any direction. In 1915 the first unit of Highland Park Community College opened as as a High School, this first unit was the Boys High School, later in 1918 the Girls section of the High School was built and finished. That same year the Junior College Program was opened in the school. Just years into the separation of boys and girls the choice was made to combine the buildings into one massive school. In 1927, a vocational education building including an automobile repair lab was built to south of the school. A further addition to the vocational wing was added in 1938, and the auditorium was renovated in 1939. The high school thrived, with as many as 3,000 students and a host of extracurricular activities, including athletics, and homemaking. During the Great Depression enrollment was low, however after WWII many veterans used their GI Bill, at the Junior College. In the 1940s Highland Park had reached its peak population just 10 years earlier Henry Ford moved most of its auto production to Dearborn MI in 1930. However used the Highland Plant as a a major production of Ford’s line of Fordson Tractors, along with M4A3 Sherman tanks during WWII. In 1954 Highland Park Community College would see the introduction of its own dedicated radio station, WHPR-FM still in operation today as 88.1FM. The HPR in the call sign means Highland Park Radio. The station was hosted by students of the school, around this same time Ford began downsizing operations in Highland Park demolishing many buildings of the Highland Park Complex into the late 1950s. As change came in Highland Park the district tried to modernize and would build replacement schools from the 1960s into the 70s almost all schools in Highland Park were replaced with newer schools. In 1973 Ford cut all operations in Highland Park and and in 1981 the entire property was sold to a private developer for general industrial usage. The demographic makeup of Highland Park had changed since the 60s as well causing white flight to occur leaving major population gaps in the city. In 1975 in the wake of a new school being built, the original school Gymnasium had a large fire break out on March 18th 1975. For over 5 hours the fire took the whole gymnasium with it, with minor damage to the other sections of the school which were quickly repaired. For the next two years the High School program would use the community college building for its athletics, which had its own pool and gymnasium. In 1977 the High School program moved to its new building the Highland Park Community High School, leaving just the college in the building of which the College used the opportunity to expand the program to the full school. With a burnt out hull of the Gymnasium, it was debated how to rebuild the once grand gymnasium. It was decided in 1983 that Bloomfield Hills landscape architect James Scott about reusing the space. Scott envisioned turning the empty hall into a “multi-purpose concourse” and performing arts space, linking the two units together. Into the late 1980s enrollment at the school was over 2000 students, however the Community College operated at a deficit that had grown to $1.4 million dollars by 1989. In an effort to save money, school administrators cut the LPN and respiratory therapy programs, sparking a four-day sit in strike by students. Though the administration reverses its decision, the financial situation continued to deteriorate, with accusations of rampant misuse of funds. After missing two consecutive annual audits, Michigan Governer John Engler began to withhold state funding for the college, as investigators report that Highland Park Community College “had the worst facilities of any community college in the state.” In February of 1995, Governor Engler announced that all funding for the college would be stripped from the budget due to chronic financial and academic problems, stating, “Though the college has a long and distinguished tradition, it has become apparent that it is no longer an economically viable institution." Local representatives fought hard to keep the school open, arguing that it was making progress in fixing its financial situation and that the loss of the school would be devastating to Highland Park’s troubled economy. By December of 1995 the college had run out of money, and closed down. Many students in their last year of education, had their degrees ripped away from them just months from graduation. However many other local colleges attempted to accommodate the students, however many dropped out and never finished their degrees. In 1996 the building reopened as the Highland Park Career Academy, offering an alternative high school program and vocational training for students and young adults in the fields of nursing, dental hygiene, and auto repair. In 2001, the Ford Motor Company opened an automotive training center in the vocational education building, complete with demonstration cars. By 2008 Highland Park was in a major decline, many of the neighborhood residents that had made Highland St. vibrant decades ago had long since moved on. Many apartments, hospitals and schools that made Highland St. up had been closed for years by 2008. In 2009 the Career Academy was closed causing funding to be cut even further for the struggling district when enrollment dropped even further with the closing of the Academy. Though fairly secure for a few years, when the state took over the Highland Park City Schools, patrols at the closed building had been discontinued, leaving the school briefly open to scrappers and metal thieves. In the short time between the state takeover and the resumption of security at the school, scrappers had done enough damage to make reopening the school cost prohibitive. In May of 2022 a massive fire burnt down the Auditorium, as it caved in on itself never to show its beauty it once held ever again.