First Global Community College.

What you get out of the other end

Certificate and short-course training, with credit transfer to partner institutions abroad, by the college's own account. No Thai degree is conferred here.

On the founding date: A seminar on establishing a community college was held in Nong Khai in August 1995 and the college states it opened to students in 1996. We date the entry from the teaching, not from the seminar.

FGCC at a glance

First Global Community College is the entry on this page that needs the most care, and BAANLYY previously gave it the least. It was set up in Nong Khai in the mid-1990s as an American-model community college -- a two-year, open-access, transfer-oriented institution of a type Thailand did not otherwise have -- built on partnerships with the California Community Colleges, California State University Sacramento and other US and UK institutions. Its own Thai name is Nong Khai - Udon Thani International Community College.

Three corrections to what we published before. First, FGCC is not a public institution: it is an independent college, and although the Ministry of Interior handed it the use of the Old Provincial Hall in September 1999 as its headquarters, a state-lent building does not make a state college. Second, it is not part of Thailand's own community-college system: the country's Institute of Community Colleges runs a network of provincial community colleges, and Nong Khai is not one of them. Third, our claim that FGCC is 'Thailand's only community college of the American two-year model' was our own wording of the college's own marketing, and we have withdrawn it as a claim of ours.

The honest current position: we could not confirm from our own tooling, on 2 September 2026, that FGCC is still teaching. The college's public record we can reach stops in 2013, and the domain we previously linked as its official site did not resolve for us. That is a statement about what we could verify, not a statement that the college has closed -- if you are considering it, contact it directly and ask for its current status before doing anything else.

What is well documented is its history: the seminar on establishing a community college held in Nong Khai in August 1995 with the provincial governor and the president of the Board of Governors of the California Community Colleges present; first students in 1996; Dr Pramote Nakornthab as founding president and Prof Dr Nibhondh Sasithorn as president; the US Ambassador to Thailand visiting on 23 September 1999; and joint English and criminal-justice training for Thai police and customs officers with California State University Sacramento in the late 1990s.

Notable facts

• Not a public institution and not part of Thailand's Institute of Community Colleges network -- both of which BAANLYY previously implied.
• The Ministry of Interior handed FGCC the use of Nong Khai's Old Provincial Hall, behind the Prap Ho Monument, as its headquarters in September 1999.
• Founded on partnerships with US and UK institutions, notably the California Community Colleges and California State University Sacramento; ran English and criminal-justice training for Thai police and customs officers in the late 1990s.
• No Thai degree is awarded here; the model was two years of credit followed by transfer.
• Status unconfirmed: the college's reachable public record stops in 2013 and the official domain we previously published did not resolve for us on 2 September 2026. We have not concluded that it is closed -- we are saying we could not verify that it is open.