The MCC links eight private universities and colleges in an athletic affiliation featuring 13 varsity level sports for men and women. MCC sports compete in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), and routinely send qualifying teams and individuals to NAIA national tournaments.

MCC schools are located in a few of the best locations in America's Heartland; cities ranging from the metropolitan Des Moines and Quad Cities to the quaint Mt Pleasant and Forest City. All schools in the conference are four-year institutions with enrollments ranging from 500 to 3,100.
 
The Midwest Collegiate Conference began as a basketball conference prior to the 1988-89 season.  By the time the 1988 school year began, the sports of women's volleyball and men's soccer were also recognized as conference sports, providing the league with two male and two female sports.  The league was founded and remains affiliated nationally with the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA).  The six original members of the league, which called itself the Midwest Catholic Conference, were: Clarke College (Dubuque, IA), Edgewood College (Madison, WI), Marycrest University (Davenport, IA), Mount Mercy College (Cedar Rapids, IA), Mt. St. Clare College (Clinton, IA), and Viterbo College (La Crosse, WI).  In 1989, Grand View College (Des Moines, IA) replaced Edgewood and the league changed its name to the Midwest Classic Conference.

The St. Ambrose men's basketball program joined the conference in 1990, while the rest of St. Ambrose's sports followed suit a year later.  Iowa Wesleyan College (Mt. Pleasant, IA) joined the league in 1995, giving the MCC eight members.  However, Clarke dropped out a year later to join the NCAA Division III Northern Illinois and Iowa Conference.  In 2001, William Penn University (Oskaloosa, IA) was added to the conference, but again an eight-team league was short-lived as Marycrest International University shut its doors at the end of the 2001-02 school year.

In 2003-04, the MCC featured two notable changes.  The first was the addition of Waldorf College (Forest City, IA), a former junior college that is now a four-year institution.  The second change was that Mt. St. Clare College changed its name to The Franciscan University of the Prairies. 

 

In 2005, the MCC became one of the first NAIA Conferences to add a full-time Commissioner when Rick Sanders assumed the role in August.

 

In 2006, Clarke College announced plans to return to the MCC beginning in 2007. The MCC will have nine members and currently sponsors championships in 13 sports.  Those sports are: men's and women's soccer, men's and women's cross country, and volleyball in the fall, men's and women's basketball in the winter, and men's and women's track, baseball, and softball in the spring.  Men's and women's golf is also an MCC sport, which is played in both the fall and spring.

 

In August 2007 the MCC became the Midwest Collegiate Conference.